Will Google Voice be free in 2013
JohnBowler:
Quote from: davefred99 on June 30, 2012, 08:28:46 pm
How is any of that useful to the OP. Sounds like a Political speak! ???
OP == original poster.
The OP asked a question based on a false premise - that GV offered free telephone calls within the US. It is useful to understand that "free *** calls" are a marketing illusion, because then the nature of the question changes and, I hope, that is useful to everyone.
This is political; the OP asked a question and the answer lies in US politics, indeed, I predict the answer as to whether Google, or any other VOIP reseller, can continue to do business within the US will be decided by the Supreme Court. (Which, as we know, is a supremely political body.)
The issue is that the actual *cost* of VOIP traffic is minimal; voip.ms and GV alike make a healthy profit off their per-minute rates. (I suspect GV get a kickback off local US connections, but I don't know how this works.) The going rate for a movie (nominally 4.2GByte of compressed data) is a couple of bucks; compared to this the cost of a minute of conversation in the US is ridiculous. The going rate in Europe and Asia of 1GByte of data is pretty much $1 (based on prices I've paid in the Europe and Asia.)
The compression used by GV and other VOIP resellers will give you around 90 minutes talking in 1GByte. That's 90 minutes for $1 at the current *retail* rates in Europe and Asia. Is it any surprise that I call my parents in the UK for less than I call my friends just 25 miles away?
(I pay .007$/minute to voip.ms for premium connection to the UK, and .0125$/minute for the premium connection to Grants Pass.)
Google bets on future technology; the idea that US telecom companys can continue to rip people off for highly compressible yacking over a restricted frequency range is ridiculous. Google are on to a safe bet; eventually they will win (because they have the call aggregation feature, and that is both compelling and not US specific.)
John Bowler <jbowler@acm.org>
jeff@jeffmusto.com:
Yes but will Google offer free calls in 2013 ;D
Frankfone:
I would not take any answer from here or any blog, for what it matters, as if the person responding was an erudite on the subject. Some people are bored to death and use "believers" to amuse themselves.
jeff@jeffmusto.com:
I guess you are correct, some people just have to much time on their hands and like to create controversy. It is to bad we have to have some bad apples to spoil the forum.
Quote from: Frankfone on June 30, 2012, 11:48:36 pm
I would not take any answer from here or any blog, for what it matters, as if the person responding was an erudite on the subject. Some people are bored to death and use "believers" to amuse themselves.
NewbieBill:
Now, now give JohnBowler a break. He was Bill Clinton's lawyer, and still likes to dream about the days when they got away with the "depends on what the definition of is is" line.
Under his definition, breathing air is not "free", there is a cost to that as well.
Currently using GoogleVoice does not cost anyone who uses it a penny. What it costs Google to provide the service is irrelevant. How they recover and make a profit on that cost is also pretty much irrelevant to us end-users. If I pay an extra penny for my Pepsi because Google conned them into targeting an ad at me that I will ignore anyways, so be it. That Pepsi will cost me that extra penny whether I use GV or not, so signing up and using GV costs me NOTHING. In John's world, he is assuming that if everyone all quit using GV, our Pepsi would go down a penny, which ignores what should be a painfully obvious fact that Pepsi has a set advertising budget and will just move their ads to a different medium.
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