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.

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

[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

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.