Google Voice UK
ConnorL9382
Posts: 112 Forum Member
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Will Google Voice be coming to the UK in the same shape/form that it is in the USA? Now they've merged with Hangouts, would be great if they rolled out free calling etc to the UK, calling the USA for free is great - shame I don't know anyone out there...
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I would have thought they would have done it already if they were going to.
It's a shame, I really liked the idea of their service, even if calls cost money!
On what basis? There are plenty of VoIP providers about, some of them offer free calls too.
Everything about Google Voice has already been done in some form over here already, apart from the tight integration with Google services.
This is actually very true. Perhaps it's more to do with competition. I'll have to all him again to see what he means.
In the mean time, companies like soho66.co.uk provide enough for most needs.
The new version of Hangouts - v2.2 on iOS and v2.3 on Android - offers free calls to the US and Canada, though: http://googleblog.blogspot.co.uk/2014/09/call-me-maybe-introducing-free-voice.html / https://www.google.com/voice/b/0/rates?hl=en&p=hangout (it works - I've just called the Apple Store on Fifth Avenue in New York).
That's interesting
Were you after an iPhone 6 ;-)
If it was just international calls, there are many others which are close to free already.
But you can't use it for outgoing calls in UK yet, so not yet a complete call management system.
What I have also noticed however is that my contact list only shows one number for each contact!! I do have several contacts with more than one number! So the app still doesn't 'integrate' as far as I'm concerned. Perhaps I'm missing something here about it's true purpose and the direction it's moving in.
Here's hoping.
Another thing that annoys me is the weak link between Play Music Store and Play Music All Access, it used to say if the album/song was available in All access, now it doesn't. Makes Sound Search pretty cumbersome.
It is showing multiple numbers here. If you go into a conversation thread from someone with multiple numbers, tap the small SMS icon in the bottom left, then if you don't see all of the numbers for that contact you should have a MORE option you can tap which will then show you all of the numbers for that contact.
Yep. Missed that. Not looking properly. Still not a massive step forward for us in UK.
In the US termination rates are, i believe, the same for both landline and mobile and are around $0.01/min.
In the UK mobile termination rates are now around £0.01/min and landline termination rates are lower (last time i looked i couldn't find concrete information but i found a vague statement that indicated £0.003/min but probably at least twice that now due to inflation).
In the US Google could balance the termination fee they received from the incoming call with the cost of the termination fee they paid for the outgoing call they forwarded to the answering phone. They'd still lose money on maintaining the infrastructure and providing the service though.
In the UK if Google gave out landline-style numbers they could balance the termination fees for forwarding to other landline numbers in the same way as the US, but if the call terminated on a mobile number then they'd end up paying 50-100% more than they received.
With the Hangouts integration they could always avoid paying termination fees for mobiles by using the data connection to terminate the call in Hangouts where possible. My guess is that this is the way they'll go if they launch GV here, but it won't happen until they've done a lot more research doing this in the US.
And here's hoping that the forthcoming Google Music Key and YouTube Music key will work together effectively. I also hope that they increase the streaming bitrate beyond 320kbps MP3. Deezer and WiMP (using the TIDAL brand name) are launching in the US with 1411kbps WAV streaming - 16-bit/44.1kHz CD-Quality. This is the same fidelity that Qobuz (who are apparently in financial difficulty) use, but they also offer up to 24-bit/192kHz digital downloads. I would hope that one of these services offers the same fidelity for their streaming.
Outgoing calls work fine for me. Did you remember to top up?
You cannot get a UK inbound number, which is why it's not much use.
Mobile termination rates are controlled by Ofcom and currently set at 0.67 ppm.
Landline termination rates are not price controlled in the UK.