When I first read about Google Voice I was extremely excited. It seemed like the answer to a lot of problems. I went to the page and signed up to receive an invite straight away.I was excited to see in my inbox this morning "You have been invited to Google Voice". Until I read the email.
What the initial publicity hadn't made clear was that this service wouldn't be available to non-US users. Not surprising really. The US doesn't have the same excessive charges to call mobiles as the UK does and they also charge for receiving SMS messages. So the Google Voice business model is probably not very commercially sensible in the UK. I've not been able to find any official position from Google on if or when the service will be rolled-out to other countries other than the service is "only available for sign up in the US". Come on Google use your Voice and let the rest of us know where you stand.