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Google has bought start-up firm GrandCentral Communications, for an undisclosed financial deal. GrandCentral makes it possible for users to manage their current phones and voice mailboxes over the internet as though they were just one single account. Google made the announcement on Monday on its company blog.

The Fremont, Calif.-based GrandCentral has been founded by Craig Walker and Vincent Paquet in late 2005. Walker and Paquet worked together while operating Web-calling pioneer Dialpad Communications. Google’s biggest rival, Yahoo Inc., acquired Dialpad in June 2005.

GrandCentral of Fremont, California is one of dozens of innovative companies that are taking advantage of Web-based software to allow consumers and businesses to make voice calls over the Internet while also working with regular phones.

Confirming the deal, Walker and Paquet stated, “You get a single phone number that forwards to all of your phones, giving you one number for life.”

GrandCentral has been conducting public tests of its service for a number of months.

Existing GrandCentral customers will continue to have nonstop service, the internet search giant said.

But all the same, one significant feature that made it possible for users to upload their own audio tracks to create ringtones now will be limited to licensed music, GrandCentral said on its own site.

A limited number of invitations to receive GrandCentral unified numbers will be available for users who sign up at http://www.grandcentral.com, it said.

“We think GrandCentral’s technology fits well into Google’s efforts to provide services that enhance the collaborative exchange of information between our users,” Wesley Chan, a Google product manager, said in a blog post on his company’s website. However Google did not reveal any future products plans it has in the area.

However Konstantin Guericke, the co-founder of Silicon Valley-based business networking site LinkedIn, did note that voice-calling features will quickly be incorporated into several well-known websites over the next three months to a year. “We think there is a billion-dollar business to be built, so we have no plans to get acquired any time soon.”