« AOL Search Enhancements Now Publicly Available | Main | Baby Yahoo Story Was Made Up »

January 24, 2005

Wild Speculation On Google Internet Phone Service Launch?

The Times Of London is reporting that Google will launch a free internet telephone service: Google gears up for a free-phone challenge to BT. For its part, Google has apparently dismissed the report as "pure speculation."

Source for  The Times? None given. It all seems based on the previously reported job ad that Google was seeking someone to negotiate for use of "dark fiber," fiber optic lines that are in place but not currently used.

The Times is going out on a very shaky branch with speculation of a phone service based on one single job advertisement. You'd think Google might be hiring a few other people to get such a service actually off the ground. We haven't heard of ads for those positions.

In addition, opening such a service would be a very tough sell to explain how offering internet phone service is related to Google's mission of organizing the world's information.

But -- perhaps they've got other sources that will prove them right. So why the job posting. No one really knows, but the idea that they simply want to negotiate for cheaper bandwidth for their own needs sounds best to me.

Posted by Danny Sullivan on January 24, 2005 8:09 AM