Thanks Mashable!

This is Part 1 of a two part series on Google Voice in Canada. Part 2 will theorize on what the impacts will be on Canadian Telecom when Google offers Canadian phone numbers.

This week’s announcement of Google Voice integration with Gmail, with free calling and free long distance is perhaps one of the most controversial moves yet by an Internet company to change the telecom industry. Free computer to computer calling (a la Skype) isn’t problematic, it’s when free extends to long distance and calls to to the PSTN (public switched telephone network) that the Google service gets spooky.

Telecommunications companies around the world continue to invest billions of dollars into *the last mile*, that’s the distance from your house back to their closest switching office. Folks with a regular telephone (as opposed to a VoIP phone) rely on that last mile to make and receive telephone calls. Despite pushes to move everything to the Internet, that last mile is going to be important for a long time to come. 

If Google is offering free calls to the last mile (this is called call termination), you know they aren’t paying [hardly] anything to the carrier who is actually providing that last mile call termination. They’ve managed to strong arm someone into offering it at no charge, perhaps in exchange for some other service.  Where it gets very spooky is with Long Distance Termination. Again - free over Google, but there is a real and true cost to terminate a call to a standard telephone in Canada and the United States.  If no one is paying for that call, then the local carrier is losing money, and has less revenue to be able to maintain their local telephone network.

:-(

Let’s look at an example:  I called my PRIMUS phone from Gmail. The call routed from Google, through Verizon, up to Allstream, and then down to Primus. All for free to me. Perhaps Google did indeed pay Verizon something, who had to then pay Allstream, and lastly Primus. And this is the call flow for a VoIP call, where most of the routing bypasses the local mile of infrastructure, since my Primus phone is layered on top of my Rogers Broadband connection. Confused yet?

If I call my Bell phone line from Gmail [yup, 2 carriers in this house - diversity and redundancy is important with 2 teleworkers under the same roof], the call still starts in the US, at Google’s data centre, heads off to Verizon, up to Bell Canada, and then down my little copper wires from the Richmond Hill Bell wire centre. If there’s no costs to the user [me], then there are no revenues flowing to Verizon to maintain their interconnection with Bell, and no revenues to make sure my little copper wires from the Bell wire centre stay nice and healthy, or get upgrades when needed. At some point, in the not-too-distant future, there won’t be any money left to manage, maintain and upgrade the public telephone network.  That’s all well and good if EVERYONE in the world has migrated to VoIP service over Broadband Internet, but not so good if you are a carrier who has to maintain 2 networks, one for VoIP and one for the public telephone network. It’s certainly bad news if you have to rely on the public telephone network for your phone services.

At some point, carriers will realize that getting into bed with Google is going to destroy the telecom industry. Everything will be free, for a while. Then everything will be bad, very bad.  Right now, Google can only offer outbound free dialling from Gmail. Just wait until Google gets its hands on Canadian phone numbers. I can only hope that it won’t be a free service too.

If it’s not the weather, how rotten our sports teams are or how miserable our government is, we’re bashing the hell out of any and all Canadian telecommunications companies for their crimes, real or imagined.

It’s so very ingrained in us, I’m not even sure Canadian consumers know exactly why they’re whining and complaining any more. It’s just a habit now.

• If you were in London, UK, you’d be paying ~$60/month for average broadband internet. (40 Gb of data transfer and up to 20 Mbps of download speed)
• If you have an unlimited cell phone plan in France, that’s going to cost you $135/month, and that doesn’t include a data plan.
• If you’re in the US, and want to go with Verizon, you’re going to pay $115/month for 900 minutes of talk time, unlimited texting and a data plan.

All these prices have been converted to Canadian dollars.

You want to gripe about choices and competitive options?

Almost anywhere in Canada, you have upwards of 6 or more choices on who you’d like to have take care of your communications services. Big guys, small guys, and middle size guys are in the communications business.

Wireless carriers in the US? AT&T, Verizon, T-Mobile, Sprint and and a handful of others. The trick is that they may not all be national, and a few of them I’d never heard of before. The other popular trick —- smaller guys launching a wireless service that’s overlayed on top of one of the BIG 2. Optical illusions :-D

I’ve been with 3 different wireless carriers, never had a billing problem yet.

Same for Internet Service Providers and TV service providers. Sure, the odd call into customer service, swap out a PVR because it’s gone wonky. Bing, bang, boom. Problem solved.

We are a very hard bunch to satisfy. We’re demanding, mean, threatening and fickle. Maybe we should be fired as customers instead?

Why I love it:

• amazing battery power
• you can’t go wrong with the size
• the apps are fantastic
• i could actually be productive with this, if so desired
• the 3G is key

Wishlist:

• i do wish it had a webcam built in. This would be the perfect skype tool.
• Multitasking - coming soon
• better speakers —- they aren’t bad, in a pinch, but better would be better…
• a dock extending cable… all my stereos have a iTouch dock…. i need a cable to allow me to use the iPad in these stereos, and no, I don’t want to use an Aux cable.

I envision my self-control over app purchases being eroded away over time.

:-D

Already there are many smaller providers who are attempting to service the under served, with no governmental subsidization. These poor blokes are going by the wayside if the government continues to meddle with little thought of the current landscape.

Ian Marlow from the Globe and Mail has some great commentary from folks who are trying to run ISPs in Northern Ontario and BC, but there are also players like Barrett Xplore, who are having great success with providing broadband internet to areas who don’t have cable or DSL options.

The consensus from the CTS —- subsidize the consumer, not the ISP and let the market drive the expansion of services. Not a bad idea, these guys should get into politics :-)

Rural Internet providers angered by federal support of bigger rivals - The Globe and Mail

Tags: Canadian Telecom Summit

The CTS is the only conference that I attend religiously. It’s sort of a telco geek fest, but with a business slant, which is why it commands such an audience.

I’ve lucked into a free ticket this year, and am going on Tuesday. MTS, Videotron and the Regulatory Blockbuster. Yes, hearing smart folks talk about CRTC Regulations as they pertain to the telecommunications industry really is neat, if you’re into that sort of thing [I am].

I can’t wait!!

:-)

A few years ago, I sketched out a plan that would see cancer patients receive a tablet type device with their diagnosis. In lieu of a really lame binder (which most get now), a tablet would keep track of their questions, answers, prescriptions, appointments, status, test results etc. You name it, it would be tracked, captured and available for review. The best feature of this tablet? A voice recorder. When you’re with your doctor, and asking hundreds of questions, imagine how comforting it would be to have the conversation recorded. I would expect that cancer patients have a lot on their mind. Trying to remember ever question and answer would be an impossible task. A tablet would become the most important tool a cancer patient can have.

Maybe we have the tool now.

With billions of apps, no longer do you have to rely on customized software programs that cost billions of dollars. You would have an app that does the prescription checking, and app that updates your *chart*. You name it, there’s going to be an app for it.

:-)

That being said, there’s no excuse.

I bet I write a ha;f-dozen articles a week. In my head.

Some I even re-write. In my head.

Now it’s a matter of setting them free.

:-)

I’m two weeks into the Blogging challenge and haven’t created a single thing. Instead, I’ve been knee deep in work, spring, Easter and trying to stay current with the TELUS Photography challenge stuff (which has only been half-assed, I’m afraid to admint).

There’s so much to rant about. The state of Canadian Politics (or lack thereof), rising mortgage rates, rising gas prices, Peak Oil, whether to get a gun license or not, how US health care is improving, how unfair the Canadian tax system is…. oh people! I could go on. But, live is calling, unfortunately.

It’s going to be a whopping 22 degrees… CELSIUS! I’ve got to get spring cranked up a notch over here.

Happy Easter Weekend!