Is VoIP Google's Next Frontier?

WindBourne writes "Apparently, Google is looking to some degree at VoIP. Of course, the question is whether they will support such items as Asterisk and FreeWorld or will they simply buy another company and tinker from that end."

Comments

Another Day...

[Colourspace]

Another story about what Google *might* be looking to do... Anything else new going on in the world of tech?

Hype?

[offensiveweapon]

Don't get me wrong, I love Google. I think they're a great company that clearly has a lot of success ahead of them. However, it just seems like there's a lot of hype and speculation about them just because they're Google. There's all this buzz everytime Google seems to be moving in a new direction. But isn't it possible they're just doing what any up and coming company would do by exploring their options for growth and diversification into new areas? Put it this way: company X could be doing the same thing, but there are no news stories about them...

Re:Quality?

[booyah]

Using an Avaya VOIP system at my office and remote sites (over vpn) i have to say its good to great quality. cant tell that the user is on an IP or a normal digital set.

having my parents and a sister on Vonage, I would say its at least as good as my cell.

I would give a comparison compared to a land line but i never use one. sorry.

Re:Quality?

[dsginter]

Anyone else have good or bad experience with VoIP quality?

It is all in the codec (and configuration thereof) that your provider uses. Most of the cheapie services will optimize for bandwidth rather than quality for the sake of saving money but Vonage does the opposite, in my experience. Their quality is better than that of a traditional landline.

The thing is, you can get CD-quality out of VoIP if conditions allow (and they eventually will). So don't let this FUD up your view of the technology.

It would be interesting....

[nbharatvarma]

...to see where Google is headed. VOIP would be something drastically different from what it has been doing till now.

I don't think Google is going to develop its own implementation of SIP / H.323 or something like that. It would probably use available ones like Asterix so that it immediately strikes a good note with people. Also, in case microsoft decides to go ahead and do something in VOIP just because Google is doing it (for competition sake) it will definitely not use Asterix will it :)

Unless Google provides something new other than the existing services which are already provided by companies like Skype, it is just like using its 'monopoly' to an advantage.

Of course, this is all speculation depending on whether Google is really interested in VOIP.

VOIP is as the future... just like dial-up

[Total_Wimp]

I use my cell phone for everything. I get "free" use of long distance all the time and "free" minutes on nights and weekends which means I can stay on the phone for hours without needing to tie up my network connection.

People who operate like me are growing and land-line use is shrinking. We don't care about long distance charges. VOIP is a niche and will always be a niche and Google suddenly "getting into it" will mean nothing more than a modest new revenue stream until VOIP moves from mostly irrelevant to totally irrelevant.

Sorry, I just calls 'em as I sees 'em.

TW

Re:VOIP is as the future... just like dial-up

[Skye16]

Yeah, I guess you're right. I mean, why would anyone pay 25$ for unlimited useage at any time in the US and Canada when they can pay 60$ a month for 500 or 600 minutes daytime and free nights and weekends?

I use my cell phone for emergencies or when I'm in the car; smallest plan I can get. When i'm out doing something, I'm out doing something, not talking on the #%*!ing phone. And I'll be damned if I wait until 9pm just to hold a relatively decent conversation with someone.

I know there are a lot of people out there like me. I disagree with your "niche" assessment; it will never take over the whole market, no, but it will have more than 1 or 2% of the market share.

Re:VOIP is as the future... just like dial-up

[rindeee]

I couldn't disagree any more strongly. I have a wife and kids at home. There is a great deal of phone use during "peak" hours when using a cell phone would cause one to go broke. I already use an enormous number of minutes on my cell for work, and have no desire to use more than I do. For $25 a month, I, my wife and kids can talk all they want, when they want to whomever they want. That makes working phone costs into the family budget a WHOLE lot easier. Cell phones are great, and they fill an important gap, but they do not (in most demographics) compete with landline.

ER

Re:VOIP is as the future... just like dial-up

[Total_Wimp]

Cell phones are great, and they fill an important gap, but they do not (in most demographics) compete with landline.

For now. But this article speaks of the future. A whole generation of college students is now seeing the landline as mostly irrelevant. They'll continue to see it that way as they enter the workforce, have kids, and buy those kids their own cell phones.

Landlines, as you point out, are not irrelevant _now_. But their the trend is definately moving in that direction.

Put another way, would you have invested much money in a buggy whip company if you could go back in time to 1900? Or typwriters if you stepped in the time machine to 1980? Or consumer landlines if you stepped in the time machine to.. well, no need to step. You'd take your short term profit, not invest for the long haul.

TW

Re:VOIP is as the future... just like dial-up

[interiot]

Okay, look.... heavily networked cell phones are DEFINITELY IN OUR FUTURE. VoIP will be one benefit, but there are many others, and this is NOT a niche thing.

Back in the 80's, when PCs went from being separate little boxes to being part of the global network, we found all sorts of new uses for computers. Computers became an order of magnitude more useful.

When cell phones have really responsive, always-on data network connections, there will similarly be a profusion of new ways to use your cell phone. At that point, you're essentially carrying a miniature extension of the internet in your pocket, which allows the internet to reach out and touch even more things in your life. Yes, geeks will take this way too far, but there are extremely practical things that NTT DoCoMo are considering, for instance. Examples are point-of-sale interactions (e-cash, mediated by your own personal connetion to the network, allowing additional possibilities), barcode scanning (barcodes are everywhere... allowing you to search for reviews on a product, or easily create a shopping list, etc), physical entry authentication (eg. at work). Yes, some of these require some small amount of additional hardware, but the fact that DoCoMo is considering these now, means that there's a good chance that some of this additional local-internet-interaction hardware WILL be added by many cell phone manufacturers in the future.

In the far-off future, we WILL have little star-trek devices that have very fast and snapppy GPS readers, fast network data connections, etc. They'll be like current desktops, miniaturized to fit in our pockets. The cell phones that will be available in a few years will be intermediate devices that start the process of removing all limitations of our current cell phones, allowing people to implement many of the applications that they wish they could now.

Re:VOIP is as the future... just like dial-up

[The-Bus]

The trend is not moving in the direction of having only cell phones. The trend is moving into being easier to contact, having your own number, and not paying extra for long distance.

In any large enough WiFi area (say, the proposal in Philadelphia), VOIP becomes cellular. Cellular still has problems of dropped calls, bad signals, bad quality, high expense, and many other things. If you live anywhere outside of the Eastern corridor or major metropolitan areas you find out that no service is 100% reliable nationwide.

If I was in college now, I would see more value from a $25 VOIP box than from a $50 cellphone. Or I might not.

The answer is going to be the company that puts both of those together into one product, hardware and software wise. When you're home, you talk on your wireless phone over VOIP. In the middle of a call you realize you have to pick up some milk and drive away. You begin to be out of range for VOIP, cellular kicks in. On the way back to the store, you get another call on the same phone. Cellular minutes start counting. Once you park, VOIP is in range and kicks in.

A very similar system to this already existed in Germany five years ago. Don't ask me why it's not been in the U.S. since then.

Remember, it's not about VOIP vs. Telephone. It's just plain communications. Smart companies will build based on that, not specific technologies.

Speculation

[mr_tommy]

Speculation on Google's intentions is almost as pointless as it is trying to guess when you'll die. The problem with basing stories on things like this (Google meeting with industry players) is that they could be doing so many other things; The Times run a similarly factually weak story early this year about how the company had plans to launch a VoIP service imminently. They based it of a story that Slashdot covered a month prior about how the company was buying dark fibre; now yes- it could be used for VoIP, but could be used for thousands of other things.

My point : Google != Microsoft. They haven't got a history of "leaking" stuff prior to product launch, and I doubt they'd do it this time.

Just once.

[jwcorder]

I would love to come to slashdot just one day out of the week and not see an article about what google MIGHT be doing or COULD be doing tomorrow. This is not news. Let me know when they ACTUALLY do something. And then only when it's something cool.

Re:Quality?

[vvhitekid2]

Some voip isn't really for everybody yet. The people who are going to see the best results, and will consequently love it, are not the same people who are gonna stick it on their wide-open 802.11b router and call it good, all while maxing out their bandwidth with P2P stuff.

You will generally* get the most out of it if you know a little bit about firewalls, networking, and traffic shaping. After some tweaking with my Avaya set-up and my FreeBSD firewall I now have just about perfect quality.

* The commercial voip providers I've been looking at are now offering the hardware to handle the traffic shaping, etc.

Come on

[mattmentecky]

It seems safe and trendy to speculate on anything Google is doing in the future.
A fanboy craze has swept Slashdot and it is safe to say that every interation that Google does or says or might do or might say, or hasn't done yet etc. gets reported like it is breaking news.

This isn't flamebait, it is just perspective people. Google made a great nifty little search engine, got boatloads of cash with their IPO, and now they are looking to spend and increase market share in...well, just about everything...

Here is my speculation of Google's future: they will have their hand in every project that they can, and if that isn't true, the speculation that they might will be reported regardless.

Here's the answer...

[robyannetta]

All they have to do is buy Skype and *BAM*, they become their own telecom overnight.

MCI, Verizon, The Bells, Google. Why dosen't that sound right?