For as much as telephones and calling have advanced over the last 20 years, the technology still remains frustratingly limited. Businesses have to contend with labyrinth-like phone systems just to handle basic calling and routing. Individuals still face dropped calls, poor reception, and restrictive phone plans. Despite the ubiquity of phones and the continued popularity of voice to voice communication (even in world of email and text) the actual act of calling is still largely the same as it has always been.
Google aims to throw a wrinkle into the mix. They recently launched Project Fi, a low-cost Smartphone service that uses local Wi-Fi capabilities to unburden cell phone networks. Right now the service is available for $30 per month for 1 GB of data, a competitive price, but not exactly the cheapest on the market.
Cost is not what makes Project Fi unique, however. The service really distinguishes itself by offering cloud-based phone numbers. These phone numbers are assigned to an individual rather than a device, meaning that they travel between devices and carriers and hurdle over one of the major stumbling blocks of modern phone systems, namely having to change numbers.
This might seem like a fairly minor advancement, but it has a number of promising business applications. For instance, anyone who travels for work or operates within several offices understands how confusing it is to have a separate landline number for each individual location and how difficult it is to send calls from one number to the next. Cell phones promised a solution to this problem, but when one device and number acts as both a business and personal phone it begins to ring nonstop. Furthermore, when an employee leaves, important business contacts on their phone leave with them.
VOIP service providers have experimented with solutions to this persistent problem for years, but thus far none has worked well in an actual business environment. Project Fi could solve this problem by disconnecting phone numbers from any specific location or device. For the first time, consumers will have the freedom to take their phone numbers with them everywhere, and to assign multiple numbers to one device. That simple flexibility could prove to be a powerful communication tool moving into the future.
As its name would suggest, Project Fi is only in the planning and testing stages right now. Google routinely launches pilot programs like these only to abandon them later down the road, so it’s too early to throw out your existing phone system just yet. But if the project evolves as the tech giant hopes, cloud-based phone numbers could become the norm in the future. We, for one, can’t wait. Learn more about the intersection of technology and the modern office by following along with The Squires Group.
