And fees and taxes and cartels and cross-subsidies.
Trust me, Google’s intent to give away for free its Voice app signals the end of the second age of telecom. The third age, with consumers firmly and totally in control, is about to begin. If it is allowed to come into existence.
You see, Google Voice does not care about service plans, price tiers, special offers, tolling agreements, franchise rights, borders, numbers, underserved communities, caps, or lobbyists. All the traditional set-pieces of telecom of the past 20 years go out the window. You get a Google number, functions that incumbent providers used as huge cash-cows, and total freedom to use it as you see fit. For free. One disruptive deployment occurred to me as sat at a stoplight on Hwy 74 and gazed up at a Windstream billboard.
A two-year special rate of $50 a month for broadband and voice was on the bill. Before Google Voice, a big, big obstacle to jumping to these come-on prices was the trouble of switching phone numbers. But once you get your Google number, you can surf from special deal to special deal without the number changes. Providers will freak out once this happens en masse.
Governments — like North Carolina’s — which for the past decade have looked to telecom services as a fat cow to be milked will be confronted with a fascinating price-point for services — zero. At a minimum, assumptions about taxes on the value of telecom services always producing more revenue each year will have to be examined.
Here’s guessing they won’t be, as the incentive to prop up the status quo will be immense.
