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Google Plans Free VoIP In the UK
jarich writes "According to this news article, Google may be preparing to offer free Voice Over IP telephone service in the UK.
This sounds related to a previous Slashdot article about Google starting to buy dark fiber.
So what are they planning? A free service like Skype (computer to computer only) or more along the lines of Lingo or Vonage?"
Once again, I find myself wondering what Google's endgame is. Are they going to remain at the forefront of search technology, or are they going to attempt to orchestrate an M$ style invasion of our lives?
Is it just me or is Google getting a little unfocused with too many acquisitions and weird plans like this? How about spending some time on your core business, your google groups "upgrade" was three step backwards.
Focus.
The more you know, the less you understand.
Skype to Skype... fine, cool, fantastic.
:)
Skype to Phone... fine, cool, fantastic.
Phone to Skype... missing link.
Without that last bit there is no incentive for someone to make a move to VOIP on a permanent basis for all of their calls.
Why? Because you still have to keep a landline or mobile to be able to receive calls from regular phones... and because the cost of making a call to a mobile is prohibitive, it's likely that you keep a bundled (with TV package) landline.
If the weight Google helps to make this a feature that is developed, then we may start to see a willingness to switch in large numbers a reality.
As it stands at the moment... my (red neck equiv') mother was impressed, but she just sees it as one more way to do things, and she's very lazy and is still more likely to pick up and dial a regular phone. Show her she doesn't need the landline (by receiving calls, thus 100% functionality) and then there'll be something impressive.
What has all this to do with Google? Well Skype In as I'll call it... it requires a network, something has to receive calls and store messages for you whilst your computer is off... who's to say context related sound adverts wouldn't be appended to the answer phone service... how would that differ from Gmail advertising?
Things to think about
I don't understand why everybody thinks Google is going to offer telephone service. They haven't said anything that would give that impression, and AFAIK nobody has any information linking Google with VOIP at all! Everybody is just extrapolating because they are making a high-capacity global network. Isn't it possible that Google might want a high-capacity global network for a different reason? They are a network company after all! Let's not jump to conclusions here.
And it all has ads.
This article seems to be taking a huge speculative leap. Google is investing in heavy bandwidth - therefore, it must be for VoIP? Either there's evidence the reporter isn't revealing, or someone has telephony on the brain.
Some comments on the article below:
The technology has indeed been around for a long time, and Skype, a proprietary walled garden system, is definitely not the first or only one to use it. So why is Skype implicated here? So why would Google buy dark fiber if the call "exploits available internet capacity"? As can been witnessed by using Skype, or other applications which incorporate modern codecs, for example the freely available wideband iLBC codec (http://www.ilbcfreeware.org), the voice quality over a broadband connection is usually excellent, in the case of iLBC much better then PSTN. The biggest issue is latency, which is increased in the case of Skype, where calls are often routed over media proxies to traverse NAT's.Overall a poor article, "By Elizabeth Judge, Telecoms Correspondent". But what can be expected of the Times?
I could see google putting a 5 second add before dialing. That is about as long as I would wait b4 I got pissed. Hear me out - I think they will offer the phone service for free and they will make money by making advertisers pay to place their 5second add before the phone connects to the other person. That way the person dialing is forced to listen to the add (though the person could just as easily ignore it as well). However, This is much better than getting interrupted at dinner time by a telemarketer. At the point that you have chosen to make a call you are a captive audience. This is great win win situation for everyone. VOIP calls will be free and advertisters will foot the bill (w/ possible revenue to gain from the marketing though voice ads). It would be interesting to see how google sets up the UI for the VOIP - would there be text/image ads that appear while you are making your call or would it purely be a prerecorded message? What is the longest amount of time that a person would listen to an ad before hanging up, maybe they could only do voice ads once every 10 calls so it would be staggered.
:) as long as they keep innovating!
:) hire me!
Interesting points:
1. Google could listen (randomly) to the conversations and note down the frequency of words being uttered. This would correlate well with any of their search methodologies because because talking about a topic will surely lead to people searching about that same topic.
2. The people making VOIP phone calls have time, some money (they had to somehow get on the internet to make the call right?), and possibly some education. For higher margin products these are the people that you want to spend your advertising dollars on.
3. Cross-sell, upsell Google can offer people with gmail additional VOIP accounts. Again these are people that like google and are willing to use its services.
4. Google gains more public karma by doing things that benefit mankind while making some money on the side - to build more things to better mankind.
5. Owning yet another medium is lucrative and would be a great chance for them to learn another business without spending a ridiculous amount of money like the telecoms in the 1990's.
6. This could be a play to compete with microsoft in terms of becoming a global ISP that sifts through __everyone__'s information and preferences. Can you imagine how powerful this would make them? The would be able to potentially control almost all the "new" (internet, voip, videophone) advertising by amassing an enormous amount of data!
7. Videophones will become a reality in the next 10 to 15 years. Google could put an advertisement (picture in picture) while giving away the voice call for free. Again - advertisers would foot the bill while the service remained free. I think that is key - by keeping the basic service free they get far more people than if they charged money for it.
8. With TV usage declining and internet usage going on, google will win in the long run
Anuj Goyal
anuj_dot_goyal_at_gmail_com
come on google
Has anyone actually read that article?
Although Google is reluctant to talk about its plans, the logical use of such a network would be to help to support a new telephone service.
So, if any big company has open jobs for "strategic negotiator" to help the company to provide a "global backbone network", does that mean it's going to start a voip service?
Is it really only me who thinks that this articole is speculating, no facts, no evidence...nothing...
ghost_3k