It’s probably been years since you last used your landline telephone in any meaningful way, assuming you have one at all, which is why most people don’t care that Google Fiber doesn’t offer traditional phone service. It looks like that’s going to change, however, as a handful of Fiber customers are being invited to test a new service known as Google Fiber Phone. According to the Washington Post, the service allows users to link all of their phones, both landline and mobile, to a single phone number, and will come with a number of features that are already included in Google Voice.
Thought landlines were dead? Think again. Thanks to a new service from Google Fiber, the seemingly antiquated home phone may be coming into the 21st century. In what looks to be a small-scale experiment involving a potentially larger program, Google is offering select customers the “Google Fiber Phone,” which would allow you to connect all your phones and their numbers, mobile and landlines alike, to one phone number. It’s very similar to the Google Voice service the company has had for a while now, and even includes voicemail transcriptions and automatic call screening. While Google hasn’t made any big announcements about the new service yet, the Washington Post reports that it’s been an option for some “Fiber Trusted Tester program” members for around a month now. When Fiber launched three years ago, it did so with just gigabit Internet and TV, so adding phone services would make it a true triple threat (or officially, a “triple-play” provider). This, of course, would launch Google into a head-to-head competition with more traditional services like Comcast and Time Warner.
