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Google Voice Grabs 1 Million Phone Numbers
alphadogg writes "Google has reserved 1 million phone numbers with Level 3, signaling that it may finally be ready to roll out its long-anticipated Google Voice service. The free service, announced in March, lets users unify their phone numbers, allowing them to have a single number through Google Voice that rings a call through to all their phones. Sources could not say when the 1 million numbers may be assigned. Level 3 has been supplying Google with phone numbers since the introduction of Google Voice, so the 1 million numbers are an indication Google is close to adding a significant number of users. A public launch has been anticipated since Google said in March the service would be 'open to new users soon.' One early user said: 'I've only been using Google Voice for a few months, but it's completely changed the way I use voicemail and communicate... When it goes public, I think the rush to grab Google Voice numbers is going to be stunning. I know some of my friends check the Google Voice page almost every day to see when they can grab a number and get started using it.'"
... how long it will be before we see a civil or criminal suit arising from a competitor, user or law-enforcement looking for a user.
There is a war going on for your mind.
for this for my G1. I'm surprised this wasn't included, even though it's in closed beta. PF Voicemail Fusion works ok, but youmail is horrible for the G1. Google Voice already has an android app, so I can't wait!
Now telemarketers, religious freaks, and campaign-donation guys will be able to find me no matter where I am.
I wonder if we'll be able to register that line on the DNC list.
Queue Dr. Evil '1 million phone numbers... MMUUUAAHAHAHAHAHAAHAHAHAHAH!'
It certainly sounds like a big number, but it isn't. What I am wondering is what the Telco execs are doing about it.
A little history for ./ The telco's stuck it to Vonage two different ways.
1. whisper campaign in the equity markets claiming Vonage didn't own the value-drivers in their business. 100% bunk. Amazon doesn't own the 'tubes' that connect to their service, has fantastical valuations. With Vonage, it *is* a very big problem??? But equity manager ran with it and hammered Vonage.
2. Patent litigation. Especially bad and ridiculously obvious patents were used to extract the Telco's vig. (hint, look up the word vigorish)
Google's much more well-capitalized and swimming in the deep end of Telco waters if they attempt to unify POTS/wireless with VOIP. When will Telco exec's send the legal dogs after Google?
http://www.maxineudall.com/2010/02/should-economists-be-sued-for-malpractice.html
"I know some of my friends check the Google Voice page almost every day to see when they can grab a number and get started using it."
And I have friends who have never heard of Google Voice and completely lack the technical understanding to want to use it. I hate it when people use anecdotal evidence to suggest how great or grand something is going to be.
Most of my friends actually have just one phone (their cell) to their name anyway. While I see some of the features being semi-useful for a single-phone user, many require one to be at their computer, or at least have a smart phone, thus eliminating their usefulness in a large variety of circumstances.
But then I realized the cable was blue, so I only gave it one star. I hate blue.
I only give my mobile number out sparingly. I tell most people to call my land line. I do this because I don't want to be accessible to every one all the time. Most calls can wait. If I had this service it would mean more relatives calling me up while driving to tell me to go on line and look at some random news story. Right now, I think I'll stick with having two numbers.
We are the Borg...
How do they prevent abuse? Say unifying Pizza Express with someone's landline - or Sarah Palin with PETA... and so on
Oh yeah, it's 867-530-niiiiiii-eeee-iii-een.
The CB App. What's your 20?
...it bother you when people do that?
This isn't a net phone, per se; it's a phone abstraction. A number that lives out there in the phone cloud, which you point to whatever number(s) you wish to receive calls at. You can still dial directly out from your cell phone, home phone, office phone, whatever. 911 is based on the number you're calling from. However, if you want your GVoice number to show up on caller ID, you would instead initiate the call from the GVoice web site or the android/iphone app. In other words, as long as you've got a working phone, you've got 911. The use of GVoice doesn't change that at all.
The CB App. What's your 20?
Nearly universally, everyone who I know in their mid 20s - early 30s don't have a landline
The same used be be true for me, but now my parents, aunts and uncles, former teachers, etc. have all switched. I would say that nearly every person I know 15-62 have switched solely to cell phones in place of home phones. The two people I know with a home phone, my grandfather (85) and grandmother (82) switched to Vonage over two years ago to the complete surprise of the entire family. Reason they gave "It's a fixed monthly cost that works for what they need."
I really think the traditional home phone line could be dead in a decade or so.
Respect the Constitution
Even if you only have one line, you might like to use this. If a business asks for your phone number, you could give them the Google Talk number. Then, if they abuse it, you simply tell Google Talk to either always push them to voice mail or (better yet) to play the "this line is disconnected" message.
My sci-fi novel, Ghost Thief, is now available from Amazon.com.
Just as long as Verizon, Skype, and AT&T take for whatever purpose they want. The same laws apply to everyone.
Its not the conversation content you'll have to worry about (that's protected from interception by all but the NSA). Its whom you call, or calls you. That data has been for sale for a decade or so.
Have gnu, will travel.
...t.
When someone calls and they record the phone call Google Voice will automatically say the phone call is being recorded, see the faq: http://www.google.com/support/voice/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=115037
cat
A VOIP app to bypass the phone number altogether... that would change the world.
But the question remains: where's the revenue?
-- I was raised on the command line, bitch
I just want to add that you can initiate a call from your phone directly. You can call your own Google number and then press "2" to dial out to a new number (including international) and end with a "#" to start ringing. I now have a few international numbers on speed dial on my cell phone (I have bought some google credit for this), the entries are in the format:
my_google_number p 2 p destiantion_number #
note that "p" inserts a ~2 second pause on most dialers.
To get this working seamlessly you need to go to your account settings and disable PIN entry for mail box and use caller ID instead to identify your cell phone as authorized to go straight in. If you don't want to do that you need to include the right pauses and pin dialing codes in that example above.
Just curious, if you are using a Google Voice number as your "one number to rule them all", and the service is down, what happens? Even if it goes down temporarily (as Gmail does constantly, ahem) does that mean incoming calls cant get to you?
Also, since Google is obviously able to hijack the voice audio, what's to say they aren't listening to / recording calls? I realize they "aren't evil" but, still.
I like the concept of this service, but don't want to have my incoming calls relying on Google's service to make it through.
THE MAGIC WORDS ARE SQUEAMISH OSSIFRAGE
As for embracing things too quickly, go put on your tin foil hat, and just don't sign up for the service. You are not REQUIRED to sign up for this service. You can keep your own privacy if you don't trust Google to abide by its own terms and conditions.
Actually, he may have no choice. If someone else signs up for it, and then calls him...they have forced the use of GV on him.
This same concern came up during the rollout of gmail.
I'm sure any calls between Google VOIP customers will be VOIP on the backend. I'm sure they'll integrate it into Google Talk as well, and then your end could be totally VOIP, and if the other party uses Google Talk it would be VOIP end-to-end. Further, if they're smart, they'll let you use your SIP-based "hard" phones with the service as well.
Second, ENUM is already standard that allows you to use DNS to direct your calls wherever you want (voice or fax - see fax could just go direct from mail server to mail server over SMTP, and if not available use the traditional number). However, guess who has to implement ENUM? The local telco providers who have been assigned numbers have to implement it - and guess what, none of the traditional Bell companies have done that or will do that anytime soon because it allows you to bypass their services and control how your number is called. I could see Google changing all this (at least between VOIP-enabled providers). TPC has tried to make this happen, but really it needs to be done at your service-provider level so you don't have to manage DNS: http://www.cisco.com/web/about/ac123/ac147/archived_issues/ipj_5-2/enum.html.
Regarding revenue, I'm sure it'll be the same as Google Apps. Free for certain features, pay for other. Perhaps Google will make it free for all at first, get folks hooked, and then pay.
Competing in the corporate world will be hard, however. All of these features I've heard of, you can do with a Cisco CallManager/Unity platform. One-reach number forwarding, listening to calls as the caller leaves the message (plus telling the system to take the call, which prompts the person calling with, "Your party can take your call now, please stand by," and then two-way voice goes through), per-number-filtering (profiles, etc.), initiating calls from your cell's smart-app (this is really SIP, and what occurs is Google would place a call out to your cell and the party you wish to call at the same time, presenting you with the caller's number on your callerid, and presenting them with your Google number on their callerid, thus "masking" the phone you calling from), text to speed (read your email to you), speech to text (convert speech to text), fax to email, email to fax, SIP VOIP to your telco so no need for a PRI or analog trunks. All that, and you don't have to worry about Google turning "evil."
However, I, as a small business owner, I cannot afford the hardware and licensing to do this. I'd love to pay Google for such a feature without a huge capital investment. I'm sure others would too.
Further, if Google's smart-app running on the phones do this right, you'll be able to seamlessly transfer a call that you answered on you cell on your desk (plus all the other features). In the Cisco world, you just hang up the cell call and it's still there for 2 seconds and you can pick it up on your desk. Or, if you were on your desk and needed to step away, you just press "Mobile" and the system dials your cell (but the desk call isn't affected at all) and as soon as you hang up your desk phone the two-way audio cuts through on your cell. While on a traditional phone system you could just transfer your call to your cell, the advantage is you can drop back to your desk phone (or any other office phone that you log into) without having to transfer it from your cell (thus tying up two voice paths and running up your cell minutes).
Anyway, it is cool tech, and I'm glad to see Google bringing it to the masses.
lol...that was resolved years ago. When was the last time you looked at VOIP??
Are agnostics skeptical of unicorns too?
They own your primary e-mail address, route your telephone conversations, facilitate your mailing list, keep track of your calendar, engineer your cell phone platform, access maps for you, host your videos, and answer any question you could have about anything through their search engine.
First question: Do you really think they are funded by ad revenue? How many ads have you clicked on since you started surfing the web?
Second question: What is more profitable, providing free web services, or selling personal data they have been harvesting for years, many times tied to an IP, MAC, Username, and the identity created by the consistencies of your browsing habits?
Not sure where the bad attitude is coming from, I never suggested that these things *do* happen, just asking about the potential for them to happen. And my first question was just that, a question, if it absolutely relies on google's service to route your call through.
Additionally, it introduces ANOTHER variable of service into the mix. Now I rely on my telco to work, with this, I rely on my telco AND Google to work.
And Google's track record with gmail being up and down in my own personal experience is not great. Nothing major, but every so often its down for a minutes.
But my main concern is what would happen if they just decide to stop developing this service? Is it easy to go back to straight telco? I relied on Google Notebook quite heavily and a few months ago they just stopped developing it.
I want to use this service, I'm just asking questions about concerns that I have before deciding to use it or not.
You kind of came off as a bit dickish, and i'm not sure how it was warranted.
THE MAGIC WORDS ARE SQUEAMISH OSSIFRAGE
There may be other things they are doing, like selling aggregate statistics about calling patterns, and they may also be collecting some tariffs for call completion--though I think that would be a wash with their model--but I think, primarily, what they get out of it is data.
Google has made no secret that their mission is to help organize and distribute the world's data. Before, they were limited to text and images. Then came video, now they've got phone conversations.
I'm in the "Google's not sinister" camp, although I don't believe it's exactly altruism. I think they do this stuff because they can, because it's cool, because they get value out of using it themselves, and because it helps further their mission.
They may find a way to monetize it further with premium features, but for the moment, because they can afford to do so, I'd be surprised if anything like that came out of the gate.
The CB App. What's your 20?
Further, if Google's smart-app running on the phones do this right, you'll be able to seamlessly transfer a call that you answered on you cell on your desk (plus all the other features).
You can actually do this. Say you have your cell, home and office phones listed in your account. If you're on a GVoice call on your cell, when you get to one of the other phones, you can hit * (I think) and it causes the other phones to ring. Pick it up and you can hang up the cell phone and keep going where you left off.
The CB App. What's your 20?
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