Will Google Voice Kill the Cell Phone?

Sat, 14 Mar 2009 11:46:58 EST

Can the child of GrandCentral, Google Voice, kill the cellphone? The answer is yes, it can. I don't know if it will. Before you justright me off as a nut job, let's look at the state of technology.

I purchased my first cell phone 22 years ago. It didn't looklike what you call a cell phone. It was a 10Kg (22 pound) crate (with the carry‘strap'). The service was $100 USD a month, and service was $1.00 a minute. Itchanged my life for the better.

A few years ago, GrandCentral was not such a major impact. Havingonly 1 voice mail and phone number to manage didn't make a big change for mesince I used call forwarding (*72/*73) to accomplish the same tasks. Getting myVoice Mails by MP3 attachments in email is nice. And not the ‘killer'application my first cell was.

Google bought GrandCentral. That integrated my ‘stuff' alittle more. It is now Google Voice. I may never get another cell phone again. Here'swhy.

Wi-Fi is getting more coverage. The price of Wi-Fi is movingdown, towards free. Some airports offer it for free now. National USA service inhot-spots at a flat annual fee is available from many vendors. The high end isAT&T at about $100 a month. So we have $100 as the high-end of a base forunlimited wireless IP. (Cricket is less than half that). And let's stick withthe far end of the curve to see if my thoughts hold water.

OK. The next item would be a netbook. Spawned from the OneLaptop per Child idea, netbooks are taking the world by storm. Less then $500gets you a one kilo computer.

That gives you a ‘cloud based' computer that is only missingyour ‘phone'. Please don't tell me about Skype or other VoIP ‘phones'. Ipractically alpha and beta-test for a living.

The restrictions I have discovered using alien IP addresses(loads of International Travel) have seen services become something I cannotpay because of a ton of reasons. In the end, I don't have to pay for a servicethat costs zero. Or if Google is billing me the penny or two a minute for an "international"call, it comes from what I have already setup in the USA.

Opps. Back to the Netbook. Today, you couldn't give me one. Toomuch weight for too little operational hours. And my cell phone goes all dayand night without re-charging. The reason is most cell phones today have an ARMCPU. Non-Geeks may not know what an ARM CPU is. It's a brand, not AMD notIntel, not IBM, etc.

As a Silicon Valleywatcher, I can say I'm looking for my first netbook with an ARM CPU (for thesame reasons ARM is in my cell phone).

Which brings us back to Google Voice.

A netbook that will let me see my Voice Mail transcribed asan email, from one number, which lets me call back (free to US phone numbers),in addition to the other ‘old' features of GrandCentral, which I manage byputting a Bluetooth adapter in the ARM netbooks USB port so my headset iswhispering in my ear when I cannot read my netbook... I think I have arrived atmy next ‘cell phone' 22 years later.

You will know that is true for me when you see I actuallyhave a published phone number.

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Will Google Voice Kill the Cell Phone?