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Matt
GutFeel Senior
Joined: 26 May 2004
Posts: 59
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 Posted: Mon Jan 24, 2005 8:50 am Post subject: Free-phone from Google - VOIP |
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Well, google seems to give threat to traditional industry as well. Now they are planning to enter Telephone industry armed with Voice over Internet Protocol (VOIP), saw this article on times:
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GOOGLE revolutionised the internet. Now it is hoping to do the same with our phones.
The company behind the US-based internet search engine looks set to launch a free telephone service that links users via a broadband internet connection using a headset and home computer.
The technology that will enable Google to move in on the market has been around for some time. Software by the London-based company, Skype, has been downloaded nearly 54 million times around the world but no large telecommunication firms have properly exploited it.
BT, which connects seven out of ten British households, has developed its own internet-telephone service. However, the telephone giant, which has the most to lose if the new technology takes off, has been reluctant to promote it heavily.
Julian Hewitt, senior partner at Ovum, a telecoms consultancy, said: “From a telecoms perspective there is a big appeal in the fact that Google is a search operation — and of course the Google brand is a huge draw.”
Mr Hewitt said that a Google telephone service could be made to link with the Google search engine, which already conducts half of all internet inquiries made around the world. A surfer looking for a clothes retailer could simply find the web site and click on the screen to speak to the shop.
The basic cost of making calls across the internet is almost nil. The real cost is in developing the software; after that, the service exploits available internet capacity. However, charging does become necessary to link internet calls with the traditional phone network.
In addition, the sound quality of calls across the internet can be poor and the connections can be less reliable.
A recent job advert by Google’s on its website calls for a “strategic negotiator” to help the company to provide a “global backbone network” — a high-capacity international infrastructure.
By investing in capacity, Google could circumvent the problems of quality and reliability and guarantee better service.
Although Google is reluctant to talk about its plans, the logical use of such a network would be to help to support a new telephone service. The company would buy capacity cheaply, by taking up slack capacity left behind when the internet bubble collapsed in 2001.
Around the world, thousands of miles of fibre-optic cable remain unused because the amount of speculative development vastly exceeded demand. Such capacity would be available at rock-bottom prices today.
Elsewhere in the world, using the internet to make phone calls has caught on more quickly. In Japan 10 per cent of households already use the so-called “voice over internet protocol” and an internet service offered by Softband has 4.4 million subscribers. Its growth has depressed revenues of the local telecom group, NTT.
In the US, a company called Vonage offers customers unlimited calls each month for as little as $24 (less than £13).
Big companies and multinationals that make huge numbers of long-distance calls are also increasingly switching to internet calls to try to slash their bills.
Google, which was founded in 1996, built its business from scratch by offering a fast, reliable and free internet search. It gradually transformed into a highly profitable company by offering commercial services, including sponsored web links.
Its most up-to-date figures show that, in the first nine months of 2004, Google made a profit of $195 million on revenues of $2.1 billion. |
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2-1454225,00.html |
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Editor
Site Admin
Joined: 09 Apr 2004
Posts: 337
Location: India
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| Posted: Mon Jan 24, 2005 12:32 pm Post subject: |
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Thanks Matt for the info!
Google has revolutionized the search engine market in a big way and its venture into the phone market might be well thought off. But my gutfeel is that it would take some time for general public to accept it as it is. The voice quality is a main concern, you know how difficult a voice chat is over the net sometimes. It also depends a lot on the type of software available. Hopefully, in times to come they will com up with an upgrade of the current software which is much more technologically advanced and free phone from Google will be lapped up by the people. But, this time will tell.  |
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3longdistance
GutFeel Rookie
Joined: 08 Feb 2005
Posts: 1
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| Posted: Tue Feb 08, 2005 12:49 pm Post subject: |
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Really intresting topic - but it seems that traditional service will be requred for a long time  |
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