Google, You Have a Woof on Line One.

Google has just launched its much-anticipated Google Voice service and the song of cellphones floats upon the air. Suckers that we are, my wife and I are already signed up. The nifty features are these: You get one number that attaches to all of your other numbers. When someone calls that number, it rings on your home phone, your cell, and any other device you choose to connect. Missed calls go to your voicemail. Here's the crazy bit, you get a transcript of the voicemail in your gmail box AND a voice recording. The transcription is rather imprecise; Google Voice believes "hey, how are you?" is "He mars anew" Still, I'm impressed. The service is reminiscent of Woof, the fictional social network service designed by Ryan on The Office.

Thankfully, Google Voice also has a do not disturb feature. Here are some helpful links.

Read transcriptions of voicemails. Watch a video » Customize which phones ring. Watch a video » Personalize greetings for different callers. Watch a video » Make cheap international calls. Watch a video » Forward SMS to email. Watch a video » Share voicemails with friends. Watch a video » Block unwanted callers. Watch a video » Screen callers before answering.Watch a video » Access the mobile app on your phone. Watch a video » Conference call with co-workers. Watch a video »

The service is fairly cheap; long distance calls are 11c per minute. These are Internet calls so you can call anyone in the world on your lap top or netbook for pennies. However, you could still face hefty roaming charges if you’re having people in other countries call your Google phone number if you use the service that forwards those calls to your cell.

The Skype App for the iPhone is a similar service that offers international, Internet-based calls for pennies.

Before you accuse me of being a shill for Google, I’m still appalled by the Joint Policy Proposal that the company submitted to the FCC with Verizon. The proposal basically states that telecoms should be able to charge people more for downloading or uploading high-content files using mobile devices. How curious that the Google Voice announcement comes within the same month? I’m not sure how much bandwidth it takes to send a text, a voice recording, and a transcript of a twenty-second message, but if Google and Verizon have decided to charge users for the bandwidth they use on their mobile devices, it could add up.

As the Financial Times recently reported, Mobile telephone "Executives surveyed by the Economist Intelligence Unit forecast that revenues from voice services, which account for about 70 per cent of their income, will be overtaken by app download revenues in 2013.

Read a story about it here.

In short, it will be harder in the future to charge people to make long-distance calls. But large telecoms will still find creative ways to make mobile services expensive.