Google's Voice telephony service, which was launched in March and new users were invited to join up in June, is on the verge of expansion in a big way - the service will soon give its testers the chance to extend an invitation to "friends and family."

The Voice service provides its users the benefit of ringing multiple phones concurrently, with only a single phone number linked to a single voicemail system. In addition, it also provides a range of handy communications and messaging features like call screening, online call recording and playback, call notification, and call blocking.

In a blog post about the extension of the service, Google said that while its Voice service still remains in private testing, the company will presently allow the existing users to add three invites, thereby enabling them to set up their own Google Voice accounts.

Saying that the number of invites will be increased in the future, Google said that since the Voice service itself is still invite-only, people who are still not linked up to the service can themselves request an invite at google. com/voiceinvite.

However, Google also clarified that the new invites may not be immediately be able to access the service because its opening out will be gradual. Over the coming weeks, users will gradually find an "invite a friend" link added to the left-hand side of their Voice inbox.