I just got this today in my daily emails from Wireless Week Say Hello to Project Fi and Say Goodbye to Google Voice Features (http://www.wirelessweek.com/news/2015/05/say-hello-project-fi-and-say-goodbye-google-voice-features?et_cid=4555421&et_rid=54170027&location=top)
This could affect our Obi devices. Thanks again Google!!!
Quote from: N7AS on May 06, 2015, 12:12:01 PM
I just got this today in my daily emails from Wireless Week Say Hello to Project Fi and Say Goodbye to Google Voice Features (http://www.wirelessweek.com/news/2015/05/say-hello-project-fi-and-say-goodbye-google-voice-features?et_cid=4555421&et_rid=54170027&location=top)
This could affect our Obi devices. Thanks again Google!!!
What we have here, is one person (you) quoting a blog, that quoted another blog, that quoted a notice from the Fi setup, and with each step, the full context gets stripped out and oversimplified.
They're separate services. Porting a GV number into Fi is just that: porting. The Project Fi customer will be using a different service, with different capabilities. And, the Fi service is now in early beta, so it will be evolving over time. It's designed and built with Hangouts integration, because that is the current and future real-time communications platform for Google, not Chat. This is nothing new or alarming, as Google has been in a phased shutdown of Chat for several years now.
If you simply ignore Project Fi, nothing is happening to your GV/OBi service at this time. There is nothing new being described here with regard to GV and OBi use: Google Talk has been obsolete for a long time, and the Talk app was completely shut down. Chat is also obsolete and most Google-supplied functions that depended on Chat have been systematically shut down and migrated to Hangouts already. The
only unknown at this point in time is if or when Chat (XMPP) support for OBi devices will be shut down, and there is no factual information announced to indicate a timeline for that happening.
All that can be done at this time is to speculate and guess. Given the large installed base of OBi devices, including the many Google employees who also use the devices, my own guess is that Google isn't going to shut out XMPP support for OBi devices until or unless Obihai develops WebRTC-based support to replace XMPP.
Bottom line: no cause for "chicken little" wing flapping at this time.
That's a reasonable response Steve.
The thing is, Google Voice has become a social entitlement so to speak--and any threat of having it taken away can be a concern for some. If the day comes when it is taken away...we will see vitriol and violence from the perceived entitled.