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Google Attack On the Mobile Market Rumored
xchg writes in with a somewhat speculative, though plausible, piece from WiseAndroid claiming that Google is gearing up for an all-out assault on the mobile-phone market that will include a new, Google-branded handset and the first comprehensive Google phone service with unlimited free calls. "The real breakthrough, however, will come with the marriage of the Googlephone to Google Voice, the Californian company’s high-tech phone service. Google Voice gives US users a free phone number and allows unlimited free calls to any phone in the country — landline or mobile. International calls start from... just over a penny a minute. Google Voice also uses sophisticated voice recognition to turn voicemails into emails, can block telemarketing calls automatically and offers free text messaging. Google sounded its intentions two weeks ago when it purchased a small company called Gizmo5... [E]xperts are predicting that the Googlephone will be launched in the US early next year."
... of a large industry, telecoms... but that is progress!
This will be very interesting to see how this will work out as every Cell Phone Carrier will do what ever they can to Quash this as its attacks their revenue streams.
This should prove to be an interesting battle as google has the funding to fight tooth and nail to ensure the cell carriers don't lock them out.
Who needs WiFi when we can have Packet Over Sheep! http://datacomm.org/PoS-InternetDraft.txt
This is all very interesting but Google Voice barely functions when calling internationally. And I've had horrible luck with it domestically too.
I've been trying to use this service for a while now and it consistently connects me to random numbers in the country I'm calling (yes, I'm dialing the right number and I'm dialing correctly). When I actually do connect to some random person, they can't hear me 4 out of 5 times (and that's being generous).
When calling domestically, I get connected to who I'm calling, but 50% of the time one of us can't hear the other. Very irritating.
So, until they can actually guarantee that their service, you know, WORKS, this isn't something I'm remotely interested in. Google Voice isn't even close to ready for anything beyond a fun little service to play with.
find . -name "noobs" -print | xargs rm -rf && echo "pwnd."
How are they monopolists of information? In fact, have you seen them ILLEGALLY enforce their natural monopoly? Have you seen them do illegal actions to take over markets? If so, please provide the proof of that. Otherwise, Cayate la boca, chica.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
Remember when web mail providers were giving like 4Mb of mailbox capacity, and then Google came with 2Gb (oh, yes, and a spam filter that actually worked)? Most providers didnt vanished, just had to adapt and still are here, giving a better service to their costumer. For cellphone industry that is something very needed, someone that come with a disruptive idea and weight enough behind to actually push it. Wont kill all companies, but to survive they will have to improve, not just giving the latest gizmo and charging you a lot.
At first I thought, whoa, the google phone company, then I broke down and RTFA....You still need a "plan" of some sort from a carrier unless you are using this google phone at some free leeched wifi spot or at home on your network. If you are at home..no need for a special phone, just use your headset and the software like you are now.
If this takes off and people drop voice and go to data only plans, the carriers will just restrict the heck out of them, maybe even dropping the caps from five gigs to one gig, then a hundred bucks a gig after that, whatever they say, or stop offering data only plans, etc. In other words, they aren't going to get "cut out", you will still be horking over ca$h to attverizonsprint whatever.
I am digging on much better quality phones though..eventually I think the mobile phone will more or less be your computer, and at home you'll just have a wireless connected screen and keyboard and mouse, etc with some NAS action.
The article says
For the first time, a single company will control everything from the software in users’ phones to the services they use to make calls and surf the web.
But wait, every phone I've ever had the hardware, software, and services were controlled 100% by my phone carrier. So in that way, the Google phone would be the same.
To me, the difference is that I trust the hardware, software, and services from Google, but I don't for a second trust AT&T, Sprint, or Verizon. They have proven that they refuse to provide products and services that I want, but Google has proven that they very much understand and want to provide the products and services that I want. I share the privacy concerns about Google, but at this point I'm just being vigilant, watching for Google to violate my trust. So far so good.
Google! Please put the dinosaurs out of business! I want to stop giving them my money! I want to give you my money for better services!
RTFA, folks. Google is far, far from posing a threat to the wireless carriers. VOIP over Wi-Fi is one thing, but VOIP over 3G wireless (or whatever) is something else entirely, something that the actual carriers have the means, and certainly the motivation, to fuck with at will (as we have already seen). Unless/until Google starts putting up their own towers, there is nothing new here, at least nothing revolutionary or "game changing".