Google starting to charge?
cluckercreek:
For the last 2 days I've been having connection issues with my local calls. The Google Gal starting telling me today that I didn't have any credit to make the calls. What? ??? I checked my "billing" in my Google Voice and sure enough Google wants a penny a minute for local calls here in TN. I know now why. The local Telecom is TDS Telecom and they have extremely high rates. It caused issues with connection with Vestalink and Future 5. I wonder when I put my Ring.to numbers on my Obi 202 if I will have the same issue. Just thought I'd pass this along to everyone.
SteveInWA:
Hi:
Certain telephone carriers charge other carriers unfairly high connection fees to call their numbers. In the past, Google either completely blocked these carriers' numbers from being called, or allowed a limited amount of calling on a quota basis. Recently, Google decided to allow unlimited calling to this specific subset of numbers, but it now adds a one cent per minute charge, to partially offset the high inter-carrier connection rates being charged to Google to complete the calls. A prime example of this are calls to so-called "free" conference calling numbers. There's nothing "free" about them; they charge exorbitant rates to other carriers, to make money on the calls.
You can read more about this practice here: http://www.fcc.gov/encyclopedia/traffic-pumping
To be clear: calls to the vast majority of US numbers are free. Only calls to certain high-rate numbers have the one penny per minute charge.
cluckercreek:
Thanks for the info Steve. I never make international calls and the charge surprised me.
SteveInWA:
Yah, they did a crappy job "announcing" this. I don't have it handy, but one of the executives made a vaguely-written Google+ post, with a reference to Google "expanding" the numbers you could call, and mentioned that there may be a charge, but there is no way to pro-actively looking up a number to see if it will be charged or not. I guess, for $.01/minute, it isn't worth writing the code.
Anyhow, now you know.
giqcass:
Quote from: SteveInWA on December 09, 2014, 05:43:58 pm
Yah, they did a crappy job "announcing" this. I don't have it handy, but one of the executives made a vaguely-written Google+ post, with a reference to Google "expanding" the numbers you could call, and mentioned that there may be a charge, but there is no way to pro-actively looking up a number to see if it will be charged or not. I guess, for $.01/minute, it isn't worth writing the code.
Anyhow, now you know.
Typical Google protocol. I think they have a roulette wheel with names. When it lands on a name that person puts out the next "announcement" on their G+ account. Then it's up to us to do the Easter egg hunt.
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