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Google Fiber Phone

fiber.google.com

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Re: Google Fiber Phone

#51

Post by jrcii »

superuser2 wrote: post #16

Or the hacker's solution to maintaining a landline: get yourself a cheap SIP-capable handset and an account with a wholesale SIP-trunking provider like Flowroute ($1.25/mo for the number, $.0098/min outbound to CONUS, $.012/min inbound). Proxy through OpenVBX or Asterisk (can be hosted in the cloud or in your home) if you want to get fancy with voicemail, IVR menus, forwarding, extensions for different rooms in the h…

There's one more factor which is the configuration of QoS. This can be as easy as checking a box in a GUI for home routers. I've also spent days configuring Cisco switches, OpenBSD queues, VLANs, etc to achieve this.

Re: Google Fiber Phone

#52

Post by aviv »

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.

It's not weird at all. A simple $10 a month home phone line can make or break the deal when trying to get a potential residential customer to switch to Google Fiber from an incumbent carrier. Also consider the number of younger people trying to get faster internet at their parents home so they can work/Netflix when they come visit, etc. This is a very smart play.

Re: Google Fiber Phone

#53

Post by sithadmin »

aroch wrote: post #10
akhilcacharya wrote: post #7

So would it be possible to purchase this and use it as a primary phone service on a data-only smartphone?

That's what Fi is for: https://fi.google.com

Fi doesn't offer data-only plans. You can add data-only SIMs to your main account, but nobody gets out of paying the $20 base rate for unlimited calling and SMS/MMS.

Re: Google Fiber Phone

#54

Post by knodi123 »

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 amazing to remember how crystal clear phone calls used to be. I wonder if there's a niche for the first service willing to use more bytes and sacrifice efficiency in the name of analog-era call quality.

Re: Google Fiber Phone

#55

Post by knodi123 »

grahamburger wrote: post #32
soyiuz wrote: post #21

I like this idea, but I no longer trust Google to shepherd their side projects in the long term. Google voice had amazing promise (and I still use it) but it has also been a completely stagnant, without significant updates for a few years now. It conflicts with Hangouts, Google Fi, and the Android SMS app. Contacts are a mess. Ditto Google Groups.

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…

> is by doing an 'in:chats searchterm' search in Gmail. That wouldn't even be so bad except that I also use Inbox and the search doesn't work in Inbox.

is there a way to access gmail once you've switched to inbox? I would love to be able to edit my filters again...

Re: Google Fiber Phone

#56

Post by jauer »

gz5 wrote: post #24
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…

Yes would be nice to see Google support G.722 on this service... I do think Google has other motivations here: + More "data" to train their speech to text and AI algorithms on? + Another UI for home automation...call your number to tell your home IoT device to do x...and enable the devices to call out? + Residential now...SMB and enterprise next? + More ads...future pricing..."free" but you listed to Google ads befor…

IANAL but I do ISP compliance paperwork ~14 days out of the year...

Seems like Google could trip over the CPNI rules if they were using call data for AI training etc. Certainly if it somehow ended up used "for advertising purposes".

It's not so much FCC licensed as FCC reporting (Form 499, etc), though many states require some form of carrier licensing. In any case, Google's already had to jump through those hoops for Project Fi. E.g. if you search `"Google North America Inc." public` you should see a ton of filings about that.

SMB/Enterprise would be a interesting market for Google. That's a relatively high-touch market and I suspect they'd run into the same objections as Google's public cloud offerings with regards to support and hand-holding. POTS replacement (or even end-user cell service) is fairly low-touch & automatable by comparison.

Re: Google Fiber Phone

#57

Post by magicalist »

knodi123 wrote: post #55
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…

> is by doing an 'in:chats searchterm' search in Gmail. That wouldn't even be so bad except that I also use Inbox and the search doesn't work in Inbox. is there a way to access gmail once you've switched to inbox? I would love to be able to edit my filters again...

Just open gmail. They actually did a great job of keeping the two in sync.

(Unless you turned on the auto-redirect to inbox, in which case you need to turn that off: https://support.google.com/inbox/answer/6230358?hl=en)

Re: Google Fiber Phone

#58

Post by grahamburger »

knodi123 wrote: post #55
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…

> is by doing an 'in:chats searchterm' search in Gmail. That wouldn't even be so bad except that I also use Inbox and the search doesn't work in Inbox. is there a way to access gmail once you've switched to inbox? I would love to be able to edit my filters again...

Yes, in the left hand side hamburger menu there is a 'Gmail' link. http://imgur.com/82iOdLf

Re: Google Fiber Phone

#59

Post by grahamburger »

magicalist wrote: post #57
knodi123 wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> is by doing an 'in:chats searchterm' search in Gmail. That wouldn't even be so bad except that I also use Inbox and the search doesn't work in Inbox. is there a way to access gmail once you've switched to inbox? I would love to be able to edit my filters again...

Just open gmail. They actually did a great job of keeping the two in sync. (Unless you turned on the auto-redirect to inbox, in which case you need to turn that off: https://support.google.com/inbox/answer/6230358?hl=en )

Even with auto-direct turned on you can get to gmail from the Inbox interface: http://imgur.com/82iOdLf

Re: Google Fiber Phone

#60

Post by umeshunni »

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.

> AT&T calls this "HD Audio"

I believe the generic term is VoLTE - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voice_over_LTE

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