Google may just be the Voice of the future

I smell trouble. On Wednesday, Google launched a new Gmail-based feature called Voice. With the exception of its social networking attempts, Google has an excellent track record of putting out new features that don't suck. This is no exception. It's VoIP for your Gmail. You can call landlines and mobile phones directly from your computer. That's any phone, presumably anywhere in the world, except probably North Korea. Even Iran is part of the network.

Don't get too excited yet. Despite an initial error that made Voice globally accessible when it launched, which has now been fixed, the feature is only available in the US (wink). However, if you're tech savvy, you can now get really excited. Google Voice doesn't care if you use a VPN to connect to the service. My VPN gives me an IP address in the US, so when I turn on Gmail, even here in the UAE, Google thinks I'm calling from the States.

This means I can call the US for free. I tried it yesterday morning. It works, it was free since Google thinks this is a domestic call, and the connection was just as good as anything I've ever heard on Skype.

You can call India for only six US cents (two fils) a minute. You need to look at the tariff rate of the country you're calling first. Since these calls technically originate from the US with my VPN, the rates can get a little screwy. Calling a mobile phone in Oman for example will cost me 25 cents (six fils), while a local call in Dubai would cost about five fils.

And for those of you thinking, "just how do I pay for this service?" Google does accept UAE-based credit cards. Here's where the trouble starts. Who could possibly be unhappy about such a wonderful thing? Well, etisalat "special" off-peak rate to the Sub-continent region is .99 fils a minute. Normally, it's about Dh2.40.

As we all know, Skype has been blocked in the UAE for years, under the argument that it is not a telecommunications company authorised to operate in the UAE. The Telecommunications Regulatory Authority (TRA) doesn't want anyone to have any customer service issues.

Now, I don't think even the TRA would attempt to block a service that isn't even available (wink) in the UAE, but could such a service prompt them to block Gmail? I tried out Voice yesterday morning, so no one locally could be reached for comment.

Technically, it would be silly though to try to block Voice, since accessing this feature at this stage already requires people to use a VPN, which already by-passes etisalat's and du's proxy filter.

Despite talks of "good progress" being made between Research In Motion and the TRA here in the UAE, there has been no definite announcement that BlackBerry services will be available here after October 11. If the TRA is willing to block BlackBerry over security, I doubt they'll have any issues blocking Voice to protect the etisalat/du duopoly. Uh, I mean to protect customer service. It's still too early to tell, but you can be sure that Voice is likely to cause some issues in the UAE in the future.