Dialing Up A Google

Google says its newly-discovered partnership with a Net phone provider is only to test a single feature known as click-to-call.

But there’s much more to voice over Internet Protocol’s (VOIP) magic.

It just seems foolish to conclude VoIP begins and ends for Google with click-to-call, which are clickable Net advertising icons to dial up the advertiser.

Many of Google’s competitors are already taking much more advantage of VOIP’s medium-bending collapse of video, voice and data into onto a single Internet connection.

Google and new partner VoIP Inc are now capable of exchanging all sorts of traffic, VoIP Inc. says. So conceivably, Google could be now offering free video calls, voice mail, conference calls, call forwarding and scores of other VOIP features.

Even more lucrative would be a Google-to-phone connection, so in a pinch someone could make a call from their personal computer. Or, better yet, there could be G-Phone, a low cost unlimited local and long distance phone service that’s available over any Internet connection.

But for now, Google’s VOIP ambitions are limited to pedestrian ad techniques, PC-to-PC phone calling, and the lots of winks and nods about more to come.