Google has re-vamped its Google Voice voice-over-IP offering to feature integration with its Gmail webmail service and free calls to the US and Canada – and has hit upon an interesting way of publicizing its offering: old-fashioned phone booths.
The company is spreading the old-fashioned London red phone booths across the country – with the majority expected to land before the end of the year – and if you step inside, coverage of the announcement over on Mashable suggests that you’ll find some interesting differences from a standard payphone.
Chief amongst these is the lack of pay: the phone itself doesn’t feature any way of adding money, with no coin slot or card reader in sight. The reason for this is simple: the “phone” is actually a VoIP telephone hooked up to Google Voice, meaning that all calls made within its confines are free – although you’ll be limited to non-premium destinations, the same as if you were using Google Voice from your notebook or home PC. There’s some confusion as to whether international calls are supported, but – in theory – any destination that would be a free call on the traditional Google Voice service will be free from the phone booths.
Another interesting feature is that the booths are designed to be as eco-friendly as possible: as well as featuring low-power hardware and an energy-saving light to illuminate the interior, Google has fitted each booth with a solar panel on the roof which gathers sunlight and converts it to energy to power – or at least offset the power usage of – the hardware inside.
It’s an interesting marketing approach – and one which is likely going to cost the company a not-inconsiderable amount of money, demonstrating just how serious the company is about positioning its VoIP service at the top of the tree – and hopefully knocking rival Skype down a peg or two at the same time.
The booths are expected to spring up on college campuses and airports – both places where people might need to make a quick call but aren’t going to want to part with money – and will feature prominent Google Voice branding to differentiate themselves from traditional payphones, just in case the garish red color scheme wasn’t enough of a clue.
So far Google hasn’t confirmed when the roll-out of the booths will begin, nor which local locales will be the first to enjoy free calling while they’re out and about.
