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Charlie Osborne
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Google Voice to roll out London phone boxes in select colleges

By | August 25, 2010, 1:06pm PDT

Summary: Google is aiming to hit university and college students with their Voice service, enticing them with free domestic and international for free in their London-style phone boxes.

Google, unhappy in its present conquests, is aiming to hit university and college students with their Voice service, enticing them with free domestic and international for free in their London-style phone boxes.

In the coming weeks, selected universities will be given a phone box which is connected to the Google Voice service which will allow students to call friends and family across the United States as well as abroad.

The hope is that it will encourage students to not only Google Voice but the alternative that is non-traditional mobile phones or landlines.

The trouble will be trying to lure students away from Skype. Skype is bigger than Facebook in users and though Gmail is attracting many university administrators to outsource costly in-house email systems, it is not as popular as Microsoft’s Live@edu service. Gmail however may offer the incentive that Google Voice will be part of Gmail’s inbox.

Danny Sullivan has a video which shows the inner workings of the phone booth on offer, which will also be available at some airports in the near future.

For me, the video does not provide me with the personal incentive to use it. While the allure of being able to call your friends or family from your inbox may be appealing to some, at the moment it offers the problem of being fixed to a desk like a landline.

Though you can take your ‘phone’ with you to other computers, you will find as many students ring home to speak to their parents, it is the student phoning from a mobile device and the parent receiving from a fixed landline.

In my opinion, they have the two mixed up. Unless Google Voice can be truly catered to a students needs, then it will not be as popular as the far-more used Skype. The London phone box may well be a perfect metaphor for the problem Google clearly faces.

I do like the red telephone box though, but maybe that’s because I have one at the end of my road.

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Google Inc., Phone, Telecom & Utilities, Zack Whittaker

Zack Whittaker, a criminologist who studied at the University of Kent, Canterbury, is a journalist, writer and broadcaster.

Disclosure

Zack Whittaker

I worked briefly with Microsoft UK in 2006 but no longer have any connection with the company. Regardless, I remain impartial and unbiased in my views.

I don't hold any stock or shares, investments or industrial secrets in any company, but have signed confidentiality agreements with a number of UK and U.S. organisations, whose names I am not at liberty to disclose.

I was involved with Kent Union, the University of Kent's student union, undertaking voluntary, non-salaried, elected positions between early 2009 and mid-2010.

No other company, body, government department, non-governmental organisation or third sector organisation employs me or pays me a salary in any capacity whatsoever.

As a freelance journalist, whenever expenses are given and taken by a company that is not CBS Interactive, these will be disclosed in each relevant post to ensure transparency.

I currently work with a UK law enforcement unit, but this is an entirely separate position which bears no connection to other work.

(Updated: 23rd October 2011)

Biography

Zack Whittaker

Zack Whittaker, criminologist who studied at the University of Kent, UK, is a journalist, writer and broadcaster.

After studying criminology at university, though still in his early-20's, he has already had a series unconventional work and voluntary positions. He has worked with researchers studying neurological illnesses like Tourette's syndrome (which he suffers from), has given lectures on the nature of disabilities in the public community, and occasionally ends up speaking on television and radio discussing the events of the day.

He first had academic work published at the age of 22, then still an undergraduate, and has been cited by a wide range of publications: from the Huffington Post, Business Insider, AllThingsDigital, The Atlantic Wire and CBS News.

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RE: Google Voice to roll out London phone boxes in select colleges
NZJester 29th Aug 2010
I can remember when we used to have red phone boxes modelled on the British style ones all over the country here in New Zealand. The last of them disappeared in the late 90s to be replaced with more modern style phone booths. Its a pity they removed them as they where more sound absorbing than the new booths making it easier to hear. They may have been old style, but over the years the phones they contained had been replaced with newer and newer models.
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Interesting.
Mister Spock 25th Aug 2010
We have crossed paths on occasions with a gentleman in a blue Police Call Box, but it is the first time I have seen one in red.

A newer model, perhaps?
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RE: Google Voice to roll out London phone boxes in select colleges
zwhittaker 25th Aug 2010
@Mister Spock The red boxes are public phone boxes. The blue ones are for police only - back in the day where they didn't have radios, let alone Airwave.
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RE: Google Voice to roll out London phone boxes in select colleges
NZJester 29th Aug 2010
I can remember when we used to have red phone boxes modelled on the British style ones all over the country here in New Zealand. The last of them disappeared in the late 90s to be replaced with more modern style phone booths. Its a pity they removed them as they where more sound absorbing than the new booths making it easier to hear. They may have been old style, but over the years the phones they contained had been replaced with newer and newer models.

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