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]

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.

[Michael_Reeder]

I do not begrudge Google their penny.  I do wish they would start taking their service feature set changes seriously with a clear understanding of how they mess with their users.  First there was the mess with Google supposedly discontinuing support for protocols like Obihai uses, then the recent Google Calendar API support discontinuation (which exploded my calendars for several days which vendors caught-up), and now the mystery penny. 

This stuff may not always be Google's fault, but they have to understand that the general public is not watching all of the technical announcements carefully and certainly not setting search routines to find obscure Google+ and blog posts.

[Rick]

Google is awful at communicating, and seems to have an attitude that they are Google and don't have to communicate with their customers (we are their customers whether the service is free or not).  Much of their online "documentation" is also very outdated.