My BlackBerry suddenly became a Google phone today, a transformation that surprised me, but may be a cause for concern for the telecoms industry.
Google announced the Google Voice mobile app for BlackBerry and Android phones this morning. It’s a small download that can make a big difference to the phone interface.
Calls and email are the principle uses for my BlackBerry and, while Gmail’s mobile version already takes care of the latter, Google Voice is now my screen for dialling.
It’s a fairly comprehensive interface – giving the the current time as well as icons for signal and battery strengths along the top, with the dialling history below.
When I call someone, my Google Voice number appears on their Caller ID rather than my cell number. Google Voice does not yet have number portability, so this feature will help me disseminate my new number, acquired when I signed up for Google Voice last week.
If you’re unfamiliar with the service, it’s still only available to a select few inside the US.
The history is that Google acquired a company called GrandCentral two years ago, which, as the name suggests, offered a service that led all your various trunk lines – mobile, home, work – to one new central number.
The web-based service allows users to control which of their old phone numbers rings when their Google Voice number is called – it can ring all of them at once if needed. Calls can be screened and recorded, callers can hear different messages, depending on who they are, and their voicemails can be transcribed and placed with the audio in a Gmail-like inbox.
Google restricted the service to GrandCentral users while it worked on connecting it up to its vast network of data centres. This infrastructure is giving the rebranded service serious clout as a global Voice-over-IP service. Calls are free in the US and there are cheap international dialling options.
Google released a preview of Google Voice in March and began inviting in new users in June.
It looks a serious threat to Skype’s Voice-over-IP service and I can easily imagine it being fully integrated with Gmail and the Google Talk instant-messaging, voice and video service.
However, using it for outbound calls reminds me of Jajah, the service from the Silicon Valley start-up of the same name. Jajah frees you from being tied to a computer and headset to make calls.
Users can type in or select the number they want to call online, but the connection is made over a regular phone – their own phone will ring and, on pick-up, the other number is automatically dialled for a free or cheap-rate call.
Google Voice works the same way and will compete with carriers as they turn to Jajah as a white-label service.
Trevor Healy, Jajah’s chief executive, sees an interesting battle developing between Google, eBay’s Skype and Jajah-backed carriers.
“What we’re starting to see now is a big change in the operator landscape, where operators are starting to wake up and coming to us to ask to use our platfrom to offer IP services and compete with the likes of Skype and Google Voice,” he told me in an interview.
“Google Voice has really shaken things up. For the first time, Google has become a serious option. It works, it’s good, it’s really causing heartburn in the telecommunications world and operators are looking at companies like us to see how we can help.”
“Google will probably build an end-to-end model of their own phone and Google Voice and maybe an advertising play, while we will enable telcos to become Google Voice.”
It looks then as if Google is moving deep into telecom territory and becoming a disruptive influence in a major industry once again. Today’s new mobile versions of Google Voice are the shape and interfaces of things to come.
