• eWeek, Thursday, January 20, 2011 12:29 PM

Oh, phones carriers are going to love this. Google is testing a phone number portability feature for Google Voice, which will let consumers use their personal mobile phone number to route their calls for a mere $20. "For $20, users will be able to move their person [sic] mobile phone numbers -- not landlines or corporate mobile numbers -- to Google Voice, just a [sic] if they were switching it from, say, AT&T to Verizon Wireless," eWeek reports.

The port, however, will likely terminate users' current service plans, which means they can be charged steep early termination fees. On the news, Google said: "For a limited amount of time, we're making the Google Voice number porting process available to users. We don't have any additional details to share at this time, but plan to offer this feature to all users in the near future." According to eWeek, Google is essentially allowing "calling in the cloud," which means one number can be used across multiple devices. "It's a potentially disruptive force that carriers cannot like at all."

Read the whole story at eWeek »