Tag: Voice Over Internet Protocol

Google Voice Is Almost Good Enough

I have no clue how it can be sustained for free, but I’m not claiming to be the smart guy here. I fly coach. The Google founders have a large luxurious jet.

I got an email from a friend yesterday. What was that thing where she could send text messages but not use her cellphone? The answer is Google Voice. It’s an interesting product that does a lot and stops short in a few functions that would make it a killer!

As with most of what Google does I’m not sure why they do this or where their money is made. It’s offered for free.

I have no clue how it can be sustained for free, but I’m not claiming to be the smart guy here. I fly coach. The Google founders have a large luxurious jet.

Google Voice starts simply by giving you a new, additional phone number. The number itself can be in your local area code or nearly anywhere else.

I got one for Stef with a Southern California area code with the thought she’d give it out and look local while Google Voice would sneakily (and freely) transfer the calls to her 203 cellphone. As far as I know she’s never used it.

The number comes with sophisticated voicemail which automatically transcribes messages to text and forwards them to you as a text message or email. The transcription is horrendous, but usually usable. The voice message is preserved just in case.

The Google Voice account can be set up to ring many separate phones from any incoming call. It would be nice if my friends with home, work and cell numbers used one Google Voice number. Instead of hunting them down all their phones would ring! So far none have used this–including me.

Like a cell phone Google Voice can be used for texting. If your cellphone has a data plan you no longer need a separate texting plan. It only handles text, not pictures. Too bad. I don’t know anyone who’s dropped their text plan for Google Voice’s free service even though it can be used from cellphones and computers.

All these things work. They work work reasonably well. Why aren’t they used? Is GV too kludgy… still lacking enough integration to make it an easy decision? Maybe. It still looks like a service designed by engineers for engineers.

Recently Google Voice released (and Apple finally accepted) an app to bring GV to iPhones. It was an immediate install for me!

It’s pretty slick, but every time you make a call through Google Voice it connects by first dialing through your cell account. Why doesn’t the Google Voice app use VOIP&#185? This one simple step could alter the cellphone landscape forever. You could buy a cellphone with a data plan only and no minutes or text plan.

Google Voice has loads of potential, but seems flawed in execution. Maybe that’s Google’s want. Maybe they don’t want it to be more popular than they’re capable of handling. More likely they’re showing what happens when a company gets big and products must satisfy too many managers and departments.

The difference between good and great isn’t that large, but it’s enough to inhibit use. Google Voice is good, not great.

&#185 – VOIP is voice over Internet protocol. It simply means calls are originated through the Internet and enter the ‘normal’ phone network late in the game. VOIP calls are data and shouldn’t use allotted cell call minutes.

Discovering Skype

Earlier today, I got an email from my friend Bob Wood in Austin, TX. He’s having a computer problem, as Windows XP fights with an application written in the ‘golden days’ of computing.

I picked up my cellphone and gave him a call. We ran through the typical trouble spots and found nothing.

As we went through a list of programs in msconfig, I looked at the cellphone and saw we were already 20+ minutes into the conversation. Hey – I’m not made of minutes!

I think it was then that Bob mentioned Skype. Skype is a VOIP (Voice Over Internet Protocol) service.

VOIP isn’t a new concept. In fact, we already use a VOIP service at home as an extra phone with unlimited Connecticut calling.

What makes Skype so different is its excellent integration into your PC. It took under 5 minutes to download, install and activate my Skype account. From that point forward, I was talking to Bob PC-to-PC. In that mode, Skype is free!

There are also ways to use Skype to call an old fashioned phone. That’s what my friend Peter did while traveling through France. Calls from a PC to a telephone cost a few cents a minute – even when calling from Europe.

The voice quality was excellent. There is no noticeable lag. Bob said radio stations could conceivably use Skype for remote broadcasts. I agree.

Where Bob and I disagree is his contention that Skype is a telephone killer. It’s good, but it’s not convenient. You need to be near your computer. It’s not portable.

It’s an adjunct, not a replacement. However, it’s a pretty darn good adjunct.

Long Distance – My Short Story

Helaine went to place a call to Hartford a few minutes ago. Instead of connecting, she heard a message saying our number had been disconnected. You read right – not the number we were calling – our number had been disconnected!

I tried by placing a call to my cell phone. No problem. Then I called my folks in Florida. Again, without problem. So I called the area code 860 number Helaine had tried and sure enough, there was the announcement.

It didn’t take me long to realize intrastate and interstate long distance are treated differently and maybe there was a screw up with ours. Between cell phones and Steffie’s VOIP&#185 service, and our really large local calling area, we hardly ever call long distance in the state.

Our long distance service has been handled for years by GTC Telecommunications. Who knows who they are? I had never heard of them. But for years we had been getting our long distance for 4.9&#162, painlessly.

Then, one day while looking at their website I noticed they were advertising long distance for 2.9&#162 per minute. I called, asked to be switched, and I assume the problem started then.

After waiting on hold for about 5-10 minutes Keith answered. I asked at the end of the call, but guessed from his first words, that Keith was in India. Though he was able to take care of the problem, and he did speak English perfectly, there were communications problems because he doesn’t speak American English.

There are phrases and ironic statements that we all use all the time which were… well, they were foreign to Keith.

At the end of the conversation he told me I’d have to call my local phone company and tell them I needed my intrastate carrier changed to ‘pic code 0333.’

No sweat.

I picked up the phone and called SBC, my ‘local’ phone company. I have accented ‘local’ because, until recently, we had our own lovely, local, responsive phone company – SNET.

SNET was the classic non-Bell local phone company, covering the vast majority of Connecticut. A few years ago, in a deal that richly rewarded their top management, SNET was sold to SBC. My phone still works, but now I’m a little jerkwater customer far away from SBC’s Texas home office. Before Connecticut was SNET’s only business.

SNET was sold, we were told, because they couldn’t compete in this increasingly complex world of telecommunications. Now, if business is bad somewhere else in SBC’s system, our bill goes up here.

After working through the voice mail tree (some options have recently changed – right) a pleasant woman with a Texas accent picked up the phone. I assume that used to be a Connecticut job. I explained my problem and read her the pic code – 0333.

“We use codes with letters” she responded.

Luckily, the carrier for my intrastate service was the same as the working carrier for my interstate service. She says it will be fixed before the close of business today. There was a $2.60 charge for switching, but considering someone dropped the ball in this mess, she waived the fee.

She couldn’t have been nicer… even though she tried to upsell me some services before I could hang up.

The sad part is, years ago this was a big deal. Long distance was a much larger line item. Now, with cell phones and Steffie’s VOIP service, we make many fewer long distance calls with our wired phones. Most months we’re under $20 – closer to $10, for long distance.

There are people at work who don’t have wired phones at all. Maybe someday soon, we’ll join them.

&#185 – VOIP is Voice Over Internet Protocol. Instead of having a real connection between two phones having a conversation, the phone call is digitized and sent as packets through the Internet or other data network. It is much cheaper to provide that standard phone circuits (called POTS for Plain Old Telephone Service). Steffie’s phone has unlimited calling in Connecticut for $10 a month – with voice mail, caller ID and anything else you could imagine in a phone. It is why GTC can afford to route customer service calls to India and what SBC’s executives have nightmares about every night.