The news is out this morning that Google (GOOG) is planning to launch a new service, Google Voice. On the Today Show this morning, NBC Correspondent Janet Shamlian described her experience with the service and she loved it.
The idea behind Google Voice? To provide you with a single phone number that routes calls to your existing phone. And it's not just the calls that will be coming in. The service also has voicemail which is accessible from any phone or browser. And you will be able to store, sort and find your audio messages in a way similar to the features now offered by Google's email service, Gmail.
The development of Google Voice goes back about two years to when Google made wireless headlines by announcing its new cell phone operating system, Android. It was all part of what seemed to be a much bigger strategy -- to disrupt the businesses of established wireless carriers such as Verizon (VZ), AT&T (T) and Sprint (S) by building open wireless networks.
In a filing with the Federal Communications Commission in 2007, Google urged the Commission to adopt rules for a wireless spectrum auction that ensured that, regardless of who wins the spectrum at auction, consumers' interests are served. Google asked the FCC to require the adoption of four types of "open" platforms as part of the license conditions:
- Open applications: Consumers should be able to download and utilize any software applications, content, or services they desire;
- Open devices: Consumers should be able to utilize a handheld communications device with whatever wireless network they prefer;
- Open services: Third parties (resellers) should be able to acquire wireless services from a 700 MHz licensee on a wholesale basis, based on reasonably nondiscriminatory commercial terms; and
- Open networks: Third parties (like internet service providers) should be able to interconnect at any technically feasible point in a 700 MHz licensee's wireless network.
Google's agenda was clear. The company is a host of Internet services, including search, e-mail, and online video and it wants to make sure that its content can flow unimpeded and untaxed over the world's broadband networks.
Speculation about its role here only increased when Google then acquired Fremont, Calif.-based GrandCentral Communications, an innovative upstart that in its early days, procured around $4 million in funding from CNET founder Halsey Minor's Minor Ventures. The idea behind GrandCentral was that a number and a voicemail box should not be tied to your desk, your home or your cellphone, but to you, the individual. Using GrandCentral, you could have just one number that could ring on all, some, or none of your phones, depending on who was calling.
Now, it seems that Google Voice will do just that, but there are loads of other great features including automated message transcription, which makes messages searchable and even the ability to text a voicemail to you on your cellphone.
How successful will it be? The company is already working hard to expand its audience from the smaller GrandCentral group of users and has recently obtained over one million new phone numbers from backbone operator Level 3.
Of course, there are concerns over privacy. Now, Google will have access to your voice conversations and voicemails in addition to emails. But given the success of Google's Gmail service, it's unlikely that these concerns will dampen its prospects.
While Google is just announcing this service now, there will be more news coming as it integrates Google Voice into its Android operating system. And who knows: all that talk two years ago about creating an open wireless network may actually change the landscape of wireless communications. Watch out carriers.
Nikhil Hutheesing is the former editor of Forbes Wireless Stock Watch, an investment newsletter. He recently joined dailyfinance.com and bloggingstocks.com as assistant managing editor.
