InsideGoogle

Google Phone?

In what would be its most ambitious move ever, Google is rumored to be getting into the Voice Over IP internet phone market. Is it possible?

With a source as trustworthy as John Battelle saying this is going to be a big week, we know we can’t discount any rumors, no matter how unbelievable. Today’s Times of London has an article that says Google will release software that, like Skype, allows for phone calls over the internet. As evidence, they note a recent job description on the Google website that called for a “strategic negotiatior” to help the company provide a “global backbone network”. They are talking about a single job description which has been much speculated around the blogosphere, the “dark fiber” position:

Identification, selection, and negotiation of dark fiber contracts both in metropolitan areas and over long distances as part of development of a global backbone network; contracts and negotiation for managed metropolitan services and long haul wavelength services to fulfill capacity and redundancy requirements in North America, Latin America, Asia, and Europe.

Identification and negotiation of contracts related to leases or purchases of data centers facilities and/or properties capable of conversion to data center purposes; experience with evaluating and assessing potential data center facilities for acquisition; experience negotiating startup, service, and maintenance contracts for data centers; experience obtaining data center infrastructure hardware including chillers, generators, UPS systems, transformers, power distribution units, etc.

While there has been a lot of talk as to what Google could do with a large investment in dark fiber, no explanation has made as much sense as this one. Google made its search engine work so quickly by buying up cheap computer’s in the wake of the dotcom burst. Google can increase the capacity and speed of that network, all at a cheap price, by burying into the fiber optic networks built by bankrupt telecom companies, with internet telephony as the backbone of the big move.

Still, is this the big announcement? Is it even true? We’ll find out…
(Hat-tip: Matt Saler)

UPDATE: Techdirt weighs in:

Times does not appear to have a shred of evidence to actually support this claim, other than the job posting, and some random speculation from analysts. However, they seem quite sure that there could be no other explanation for the search for dark fiber. It seems that the Times may be a victim of a big internet-based game of telephone, interpreting bits of information that passed from site to site to conclude that Google is somehow about ready to launch their own phone system.

I agree. There is basically no evidence at all. Still, the cryptic quote from Battelle plus the fact that I don’t believe they’d print this story without some evidence leads me to believe they know something we don’t. Even if it is just a silly game of telephone, it sure is fun to speculate, isn’t it?

UPDATE 2: I’m going to ramble for a second here…

Lets say Google creates a searchable yellow pages, charging businesses all along the way. The difference between this and every other yellow pages, and the single reason Google can charge astronomical ad rates? A simple “Call Me” button. Click it, call the company, buy a product. Its the ultimate in advertising, resulting in a phone call. Google could also, if you have Google Phone installed, integrate Google Yellow Pages results into the regular AdWords ads throughout its ad network. All of a sudden, with ad rates double that of regular AdWords, Google has more that enough profit to offer free Voice Over IP. Doable? Maybe, maybe…

UPDATE 3: A Slashdot poster has his own excellent idea:

Voicemail shows up in your gmail inbox, e-mail gets summarized in voice messages, voicemail is indexed…

I like it.

UPDATE 4: Google has denied that it is moving towards VoIP.
(via Search Engine Watch)

January 24th, 2005 Posted by Nathan Weinberg | General | 6 comments