Google plans to launch Fiber Phone service with unlimited domestic calling
30 Mar 2016
Google plans to launch the next evolution in landlines, the Fiber Phone with a related subscription service at $10 per month. The service would offer unlimited local and national calls as well as international rates at par with Google Voice.
In a number of ways, Fiber Phone adds mobile phone functionality to users' landline. Users get to keep their existing number, and the service offers users with spam filters, call-blocking, do-not-disturb and more and if that was not enough, Google would apparently transcribe users' voicemail, text or email.
The facility also comes with the power of the cloud. A call on users' landline can be answered on their mobile, tablet or even laptop and the number stays with the user everywhere.
''Whether it's calling mom or ordering take-out, we rely on our phones to help reach the people and things that matter. And while mobile phones have pushed us toward the future, home phone service is still important to many families,'' says Google.
The service comes with a little black box that sits beside users' home phone and has both ethernet and phone jacks. It works with most handsets except for old rotary phones, according to Kelly Mason, a company spokesperson.
According to commentators, Google Fiber's effort to draw in phone customers highlighted how the company was becoming more like traditional service providers even as many telecom companies were looking to become more like internet content firms.
Even cellphone service providers had been shifting their focus away from voice and toward the most lucrative provision of mobile data. According to reports this week, T-Mobile might soon launch new phone plan options that eliminated voice service entirely to give users a bigger bucket of data.
Commentators say Fiber Phone could appeal to those who currently bought their internet and television from Google Fiber, but still subscribed to landline services of a different provider, such as Verizon. Signing up for Fiber Phone would allow those US citizens to eliminate another bill from their lives and consolidate their services into a double- or triple-play deal with Google Fiber.
