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Google Fiber Phone

fiber.google.com

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Re: Google Fiber Phone

#111

Post by msabalau »

Osiris wrote: post #19
bpicolo wrote: post #3

Sort of weird that it's something they bothered with, considering home phones are on the out and out. Edit: That said, I'm sure there are still 100m Americans with phone service, but I don't know that the demographics of people who care to switch to google fiber and need phones are really that overlapping. Then again, Google probably researched this much more than I did. Just seems odd from my perspective.

I still have a home phone, but it's an ObiTalk box that logs into my Google Voice account, so I don't pay anything for it. I actually prefer it over my cell phone because the call quality is much better.

This is the "sort of" landline solution that I use. I get iffy cell reception in my home, this means is a nice affordable way to ensure calls get through.

Re: Google Fiber Phone

#112

Post by r00fus »

umeshunni wrote: post #60
matthewmcg wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a shame that a lot of this innovation, while radically increasing flexibility and dropping cost, has degraded call quality. On the other hand, calls between certain compatible LTE handsets (AT&T calls this "HD Audio" in my market) sound far better than classic landlines ever did. Ditto for good Skype calls and Facetime Audio.

> AT&T calls this "HD Audio" I believe the generic term is VoLTE - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voice_over_LTE

T-Mobile had it from 2013 and earlier (they got the iPhone5 in 2013 and it supported HD Voice). Call quality can be like a clear Skype.

Re: Google Fiber Phone

#113

Post by jonah »

jauer wrote: post #66
BHSPitMonkey wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn't Google's offering here VOIP based? Sounds equivalent.

More or less with a number of caveats :) Telco/ISP provided "VOIP" is often technically Voice over IP (as in the protocol), but regulations and implementation can be subtly different from VOIP (what people think of as Voice over the Internet AKA "over the top" or OTT). ISP-provided Voice often comes with requirements for battery backup in the fiber/dsl/ata box so the user can call 911 during a power outage. There's a…

What are the regulations surrounding this? They say it works for 911.

Is it like Vonage or like telephone bundled from your cable provider?

Are they providing a battery-backed modem with RJ11 jack?

Re: Google Fiber Phone

#114

Post by gcb0 »

zanny wrote: post #41
grahamburger wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed on Google Voice, I used it all the way back to the Grand Central days and I wish it were maintained more. That being said, the Hangouts integration isn't that bad now. I know it feels risky to hit that 'merge to hangouts' button but I've been using it for a while without any huge inconveniences. The only problem I run in to is when I need to search for old SMS messages, the only way to do it after merging is b…

I'm much happier having them carry Google Voice on in Hangouts than kill it. It is an incredibly valuable way to just have a phone number that works without having to pay every month for it.

it is on hangouts for years. and it suck in all and every way imaginable. if there was a way to make it suck, they did it.

you have to keep switching accounts (close conversation, press hamburger icon, click account icon) everytime! got a SMS? switch to the confusing SMS account. Got a SMS on your google voice account? switch to the account (gets better if you have two!).

Dial via google voice? had your SMS account selected last? you will only get a "can't dial" error and the app closes.

it is the worst wtf fest of all google screw-ups in usability ever.

Re: Google Fiber Phone

#115

Post by gkop »

rahimnathwani wrote: post #108
HCIdivision17 wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Worse yet, you could talk at the same time as the other person! Carrying on a conversation with my mom is like talking at that fancy riot mike from a few years ago [0]. If you don't have a perfectly negotiated rhythm, you're gonna talk over the other person, cutting them off, missing part of their sentence, and then begin a flood of repeat/acks before starting again. It's bloody idiotic, and my mom is convinced she's…

I agree that latency causes people to cut each other off. But I've not found fidelity to be a problem. FaceTime, Skype and WeChat voice fidelity beats POTS for me.

FaceTime is the best.

Re: Google Fiber Phone

#116

Post by mryan »

soared wrote: post #96

Apparently no one actually fucking read the page. > ON-THE-GO >Get calls on your mobile phone. Stay connected no matter where you are. Have Fiber Phone ring your landline when you're home or your mobile when you're onthe-go. This isn't about landlines at all.

> Fiber Phone > Your home phone. On Google Fiber.

Those are the very first words you see when opening the page. It seems quite clear that they are referring to landlines.

The line between landlines and mobiles is blurring and the feature set described in the page reflects that.

Re: Google Fiber Phone

#117

Post by voltagex_ »

rayiner wrote: post #6

A landline phone service seems a bit anachronistic, but there is a place for it. The future of telephony is here, but it sucks. Many here on HN probably don't even remember this, but phone calls actually used to be intelligible. Before cell phones and VOIP, before packet-switching and aggressive digital compression, calls traveled over Ma Bell's glorious circuit-switched network. You could actually understand what pe…

Blame your carrier. Wideband codecs on LTE should make things better.

Re: Google Fiber Phone

#118

Post by lucaspiller »

matthewmcg wrote: post #34
rayiner wrote: post #6

A landline phone service seems a bit anachronistic, but there is a place for it. The future of telephony is here, but it sucks. Many here on HN probably don't even remember this, but phone calls actually used to be intelligible. Before cell phones and VOIP, before packet-switching and aggressive digital compression, calls traveled over Ma Bell's glorious circuit-switched network. You could actually understand what pe…

It's a shame that a lot of this innovation, while radically increasing flexibility and dropping cost, has degraded call quality. On the other hand, calls between certain compatible LTE handsets (AT&T calls this "HD Audio" in my market) sound far better than classic landlines ever did. Ditto for good Skype calls and Facetime Audio.

There are good quality codecs available that use less bandwidth and have better quality than traditional phone calls, but they are encumbered by patents and license fees. Most people just care about getting a service cheaply/free rather than the actual quality, so most providers will just use the G711 (what landline phones use for trunking) or GSM codecs which are free to use. G722.2 (AMR-WB or "HD Audio") provides a better quality at less than half the bandwidth of G711, but it isn't free to use so very few providers support it.

Not only that, but the codec needs to be supported at all stages of the call (the phones, the VOIP server, the trunk if external, etc), and if not it'll need to be re-encoded, which uses more CPU and reduces the call quality. As such you are probably better off just sticking with a more common, lower quality, codec. It's a chicken and the egg problem as providers won't support more codecs until hardware does and vice-versa (Twilio's SIP trunking service only supports G711, which is kind of the lowest-of-the-low).

Re: Google Fiber Phone

#119

Post by nickik »

rayiner wrote: post #6

A landline phone service seems a bit anachronistic, but there is a place for it. The future of telephony is here, but it sucks. Many here on HN probably don't even remember this, but phone calls actually used to be intelligible. Before cell phones and VOIP, before packet-switching and aggressive digital compression, calls traveled over Ma Bell's glorious circuit-switched network. You could actually understand what pe…

We have been fighting for net neutrality for good reason market reasons, but it works against phone quality when VOIP in the internet.
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