Google Announces Fiber Phone, a $10/Month Home Telephone Service

Google on Tuesday announced Fiber Phone, a home phone service for Fiber subscribers. For $10 a month, Fiber Phone offers unlimited local and nationwide calling, and "the same affordable rates as Google Voice for international calls." From company's blog post: You can keep your old phone number, or pick a new one. You can use call waiting, caller ID, and 911 services just as easily as you could before. Fiber Phone can also make it easier to access your voicemail -- the service will transcribe your voice messages for you and then send as a text or email. Writing for TechCrunch, Devin Coldewey explains why this matters: Fiber Phone features unlimited calls to the U.S., call filtering and blocking, voicemail transcription, and call forwarding to your mobile so you don't miss that telemarketer. It may seem an anachronism, but if Google aims to be the main or even sole conduit for communication in the areas it is expanding to, it does have to offer this.

Comments

Filter our telemarketers

[InterGuru]

Sign up for nomorobo.com. It's free service that blocks telemarketers

From their website

Nomorobo uses a feature known as "Simultaneous Ring". When simultaneous ring is enabled, your phone will ring on more than one number at the same time. The first device to pick it up gets the call and the other phones stop ringing.

So, when the Nomorobo number is enabled as a simultaneous ring number it is the first number to screen the call. If it’s a legitimate call, the call goes through to your number. If the call is an illegal robocaller, Nomorobo intercepts the call and hangs up for you. Your phone will ring once letting you know that the robocall has been answered and stopped.

Re:Filter our telemarketers

[chihowa]

The first thing I think when I hear "free service" is to wonder how I am really paying for this service. This company will have complete logs of all of your incoming calls, which could be worth something to somebody. They claim otherwise, though.

From their site:

How Does Nomorobo Stay In Business?
The service is free for consumers but business and public safety organizations pay to license the data. For consumers, robocalls are annoying. But, for businesses it costs them real money. And, for EMS systems (like 911), it could be a matter of life and death.

These are the people that don't mind paying for the service and using it directly in their telephone equipment.

Google announces another product they wont sell me

[netsavior]

I would love to buy fiber, but like 95% of the country, NOPE. Yay another add-on feature I can't buy.

Re:$10/month plus

[fonos]

I take it you've never seen a Google Fiber bill before. This is how mine looks:

Gigabit Ethernet $70.00
Taxes, Fees, Surcharges $0.00
Total: $70.00

Re:Separating first and third worlds

[NotDrWho]

At they rate they've been deploying it so far, it should be in every major U.S. market by the year 2216.

This should be free

[mrchaotica]

(And by "free" I mean at no additional cost beyond the Google Fiber internet service itself.)

After all, Google already offers Google Voice / Hangouts for free. I assume that this is just Google Voice plus an ATA -- essentially the same thing lots of people already do using an ObiTalk, just entirely Google-branded.

When I get off the phone

[future assassin]

will online ad tracking now show me ads relating to what I was talking about on the phone?

Re:Fire Phone?

[msmash]

Oops. Have fixed it now -- thanks for pointing it out!

Re:Separating first and third worlds

[U2xhc2hkb3QgU3Vja3M]

Good, that means it should be available in my small town in Canada by the year 5940.