The Future Of Google Voice
As of late Google has been pretty lipped when it comes to news about the future of Google Voice and the Nexus One. When an executive actually says something of intrest, we listen. Ex-Yahoo! advanced development division leader and now Google executive Bradley Horowitz was recently interviewed by eWeek and said something about Google Voice that has everyone buzzing with excitment in regards to where the service may be headed in 2010. Bradley was quoted saying,
“What we’re trying to do with telephony is give people a seamless experience that frees up their telephony communication from the silos where it’s lived for the last decade. Voicemail, my contacts, all of those things have been segregated from the rest of my Web experience. We have big plans to do a better job.”
A lot of readers may be wondering what this means to you. A couple of days ago on DroidDog an article was posted that touches on how amazing VoIP for Nexus One users could be. The post mentions how a scenario like VoIP kicking in after your 500 minutes was up to take care of any extra calls you make would cause phone plans to be cheaper for most people. What if a carrier was offering a plan that gave you nothing but unlimited data use for around $40-$50 a month, but by using VoIP and something like Google Voice, you would actually have unlimited everything? Would you go for it? I would gladly pay $530 for an unlocked handset with specs like the Nexus One, pay a company like T-Mobile 40 dollars a month to use their data network, and then just have all of my device’s services handled by Google for free. The best part about all this is that with a little time and cooperation from participating companies, these kind of plans could be put into action right away. This is all just talk and rumors for now, but it’s something that could some day very soon become a reality. Not just a reality but the future of mobile communications. Like all great things, this would take quite some time to put into action, but I have a feeling that it would be well worth the wait.
The article I mentioned earlier can be found here.
Via Android Guys
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the only thing that confuses me is instead of doing VOIP if it exceeds 500 minutes, why not use VOIP 100% of the time? They have gizmo5, they have GV. All they gotta do is finalize it ( as im sure its in the works) and get a carrier to let you buy a data only. Also the carrier would have to allow for the people to get a data only plan for an affordable price. If they know we can txt, call and web surf through only a data plan, a normal data plan may become a $70 plan.
Good point. I often wondered about that same scenario. Let’s play a game. Let’s say that everything goes through data. Voice, sms, e-mail, and internet. No need for a voice/text plan. Data traffic would increase exponentially of course. All the cell carriers recognizing that would then hike up their rates for unlimited data plans to who knows, $40-$70? Then again, would people really do only voip? I have google voice and it works pretty well. It’s also kind of nice to be able to recall text conversations as it records everything via an interface similar to gmail. Yea. records everything. This scenario also reinforces the idea that google is Skynet. But that’s another discussion…Happy New Year everyone!
Rumors from several months ago said the Google Phone would have a data-only plan with VOIP-only for voice for $30/month. I would even pay $50/month for a setup like this. The latest $80/month rumors do not interest me.
That all sounds good as long as you have 3G or WiFi services.
i second that
Why wait until after your 500 minutes is up to use VoIP? To me, it seems more logical that the 500 minutes would be better used as backup for the times when you aren't on the 3G network or a wi-fi connection. There will be a lot of places you can't get 3G or wi-fi but will still be in reach of some cell tower so I understand why they would require the 500 minutes still. Once the 3G and 4G networks are as large as the cell networks, then there won't be a need for backup cell minutes but that's probably a few years off still.
If the N1 is meant to be used mostly with VoIP, I wouldn't get the phone subsidized through T-Mo and pay $80/mo. I would pay $530 for the phone and get the same 500 minute plan off contract for $60/mo. You wouldn't save a ton but it would be about $130 over two years and likely pay a bit less in taxes too.
I have been reading the comments today and everyone is right on the money. That's why I mentioned how paying for just data from a carrier for like 40-50 a month and using VoIP to have unlimited everything would be amazing. Fingers crossed.
wait, why would an unlimited data-only plan cost up to 40-50 bucks? that's really expensive JUST for data…
It may be something like 30 or carriers may charge a 10-20 dollar premium for having no voice plan.
Thanks for the mention. can you also link to my piece? http://www.eweek.com/c/a/Cloud-Computing/Google-Has-Big-Plans-for-Google-Voice-Cloud-Computing-in-2010-552678/
The info that is known right now is that google & TMobile is combining the worst of the US & Euro markets…
Europe unsubsidized Phone prices + US subsidize Phone Plan prices… = Getting clover on both ends… ($540+$80 a month = Nothing to see here.. Wait for the HTC Bravo)
Multiple blogos see google possibly making google voice take up the slack after the limited 500mins of the subsidize plan… But then that would mean that all that should be needed is data only for those that don't subsidize this plan from TMobile… If the Nexus One can receive & call out thru google voice… Then it would mean it can be data only…
I don't understand why it would be limited for use after the 500mins are used up… If it's capable of VoIP… Then it should just work all the time..
Data Only($20-$30 a month) 1ghz phone would make it worth $540… And the invitation only can be at first for only google voice + gizmo5 current account holders to get the service started & tested…
Hope that this is a surprise that google has kept to itself since just about everything else is know about the phone… If not then it's not worth the cost/hype…Cool
That is exactly what I was thinking and would make total sense. If they did that, I'm in and I'm sure tons of other people would be making a switch to tmo.
i second that too
i believe that it is a problem with the carriers rather than Google, See the carriers really dont like being cheated out of money, so for us, to be able to call, txt, and surf all with a data plan, the carrier is loosing money, while we are gaining services. Its a win/lose. With this plan (currently rumored to go with the nexus one) it creates the illusion like we are winning, having to payfor a smaller plan, when in fact the carrier is winning because they are getting payed $80/month when in truth we are only using voice for 500 minutes (not a lot) then the rest is VOIP, we are paying the price of an unlimited voice txt and web plan, but only recieving 500 minutes, to the user it makes no difference, but we are paying a large sum for a small amount of minutes and unlimited web. The nexus one (as its rumored) is perfectly capable of becoming a 100% VOIP phone only requiring a data plan. But because the carriers have us americans by the balls, we are forced to play along. It also does not help the fact that even if you pay for a unlocked nexus one, It will only work on Tmobile if you live in the states. So for us americans the only difference between the unlocked and the subsidized is the 2 year contract because we are still forced to use tmobile.
The closer and closer we get to Jan 5th, the more information that gets released seems to only bring down the awesomeness of this phone.
right, in order to counter act the amount of money that they would lose from google phone users using 100% VOIP they would undoubtedly hilke up the data only plan. Not to mention i doubt they could even withstand the amount of bandwith from all the people using data only. I have tested some VOIP systems, to the user there is no noticable difference in anything, if the phone is built to treat VOIP as a traditional call then there is no noticable difference. As for Google becoming Skynet well, thats not until Dec 31, 2012.
Unless there is new pricing info out, your numbers are a bit off. It isn't $540+$80/mo. It is either $180+$80/mo on contract or $530+$60/mo off contract. Both would give a person 500 minutes of cell service. For people who travel outside T-Mo's current 3G coverage area every now and then, the 500 minutes are needed to still make calls. Sure, it would be nice if T-Mo offered a data only plan for people who are always connected to 3G but at this point, it probably isn't many.
Has anyone else noticed the fishiness of the 80/month price? Well for a sub G1 with 500minutes and the required web and text plan with it, its only 70/month. So why is the nexus one 10$ more per month for the same features?
Has anyone else noticed the fishiness of the 80/month price? Well for a sub G1 with 500minutes and the required web and text plan with it, its only 70/month. So why is the nexus one 10$ more per month for the same features?
Has anyone else noticed the fishiness of the 80/month price? Well for a sub G1 with 500minutes and the required web and text plan with it, its only 70/month. So why is the nexus one 10$ more per month for the same features?