Search giant Google officially added a new Internet phone service to its stable of ‘cloud’ services last week.

Google Voice distinguishes itself from other VoIP services in that it can aggregate voice and text messages from various phone numbers for remote access from a single location by phone or email.

Long distance connections will be available at ‘competitive’ rates and there’s also a conference calling feature.

Google says there’s no advertising associated with domestic calls. However, it’s implied that you might have to suffer through ads inserted into calls by other carriers when making international connections — something over which Google has no control.

Google’s foray into VoIP telephony was facilitated by its acquisition of Internet phone company Grand Central (GC) last summer. Until now, Google had not opened the system to new subscribers but did support existing GC customers in the interim. Google will be rolling out general Voice availability in stages over the next few weeks.

Google made no predictions at launch time about how many users it expects the service to attract.