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Google Phone. A new Era ?

Micom 2000

Veteran Member
Joined
Mar 6, 2004
Messages
1,284
Location
Manitoba North of 50 degrees Latitude
I just made a bunch of telephone calls via Google phone. I'm blown away. I knew about Skype but it seemed to demand a computer on the other end as well as a fee for using it.

After downloading the google voice/video plug-in an icon appeared under the Chat area on the left side and clicking on it and using the pop-up dialler, I was able to make numerous free (in-Canada and the US) long-distance phone calls with excellent sound quality. My old mike was the weakest part of the chain. It connected to landlines impeccably and to a cell-phone with no problem.

It's obviously aimed to undercut Skype and seems much easier. It does tho demand W-XP or later to my knowledge. I'm going to see if it can work on a newer machine with W98. I'm doubtfull.
 
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I almost guarantee KernelEx can make that work on 98SE, I even got the latest Firefox 4 betas running with that, and it's a webapp afterall.

We use Ooma here, which is basically like a free version of Vonage - you pay $200USD for a box, hook your phones up through it, and no phone bills forever for basic service. :D

I was under the impression that Google's phone app didn't have free features - I'll have to look into that. Skype was utterly useless to me as that, being paid to access landlines, etc., but this sounds good from your description.

Although I don't trust Google too much, they scare me. Perhaps using them as a phone isn't the best idea..
 
Well, likely they're just testing the product and will later make it a pay to use service. I wasn't sure if it was already or not, I only saw the pop ups yesterday at work when checking my mail but of course I don't have any reason to use it there so it was ignored. I have an ex-neighbor who since folks pulled a lot of their land line service away from our area and cell usage evidently sucks a mile west of here are using that magic jack usb to phone thing. It's really cheap ($3/mo) but is basically just a voip connection. The cool part is any normal phone can be used so you can use a wireless phone base and the phone can still be used outside of the computer room. Anyway they like it and I'll probably use it soon just to get a second phone at some point even though it's only good as your internet provider and power.
 
Calling Credit shows how much credit you have available to make international calls from Google Voice. Calls made within the U.S. and Canada are free and don't affect your balance.
 
Well for me it means I can save an aprox. $20 a month cost on my phone bill. The local phone co. who is also my ISP, the sole broadband provider in my area collects $15 a month to limit the total cost of long-distance phone-calls to $15 plus other little charges which adds up to $20. There is no cable alternative here at this time.

In Canada in earlier times, because of it's sparse rural population, big money wouldn't invest in utilities to supply the remoter areas, and in most provinces provincial governments took charge of supplying Hydro, telephone, and transportation. Alberta, which is Canada's Missisippi went it's own way more or less. :^(

While hydro remains for most provinces a provincially-owned, and profitable commodity, many other utilities were "privatized" to our detriment. including Manitoba Teliphone under a Conservative government. The resulting private corporation, of which the former Conservative premier is a Board member, MTS, is the main provider of IT services. Of course quality of service went down, because of cuts in staff and demands for profit. They've recently also turned over web-mail to MS$ Live online which now subjects us to the US Heritage Act and removes us from the protection of canadian law which most canadians view as more rational.

So any development which frees me from the clutches and billing of MTS I embrace with glee. I'm not prepared however to give up my access to telephone calls while 'surfing" so I await another development where I can cut out MTS completely.

I was an early enthusiast of the old Google when it first came out, as were most of the c-cmp people, when compared to MS$, Yahoo or Alta Vista. It has undeniably deteriorated but they did rescue the remnents of Deja News and have done some quite remarkable things. I tried ASK and it was pitiful which is true of most alternate search engines. There don't seem to be many alternatives. I'll go with the flow, but certainly not the rapacious ventures of Apple. It reminds me of MCA, Sony, and the other cultural arbritors who've tried to get control of media in order to line their own pockets while screwing the artists. (or programmers !!)

Lawrence
 
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