[gz5]

Yes would be nice to see Google support G.722 on this service...

I do think Google has other motivations here:

+ More "data" to train their speech to text and AI algorithms on?

+ Another UI for home automation...call your number to tell your home IoT device to do x...and enable the devices to call out?

+ Residential now...SMB and enterprise next?

+ More ads...future pricing..."free" but you listed to Google ads before/after conversations?

Anyone know if Google needs to be a FCC licensed carrier to offer the E911 service? Seems grey. If so, maybe that's why only certain markets?

[jauer]

IANAL but I do ISP compliance paperwork ~14 days out of the year...

Seems like Google could trip over the CPNI rules if they were using call data for AI training etc. Certainly if it somehow ended up used "for advertising purposes".

It's not so much FCC licensed as FCC reporting (Form 499, etc), though many states require some form of carrier licensing. In any case, Google's already had to jump through those hoops for Project Fi. E.g. if you search `"Google North America Inc." public` you should see a ton of filings about that.

SMB/Enterprise would be a interesting market for Google. That's a relatively high-touch market and I suspect they'd run into the same objections as Google's public cloud offerings with regards to support and hand-holding. POTS replacement (or even end-user cell service) is fairly low-touch & automatable by comparison.

[grahamburger]

All fixed VoIP providers must offer E911. I don't think they would have the option of not providing it. I don't know the exact rules, but I've worked for several small ISPs that offered white labelled Voice products and we always had to carefully maintain our address directories for E911 service, and customers were not allowed to opt out. (For example if the only address we had on file for a customer was a PO box, we had to get a street address in order to sell them the VoIP product.)