Voice From Inside Facebook

Pat Phelan points out that there are perhaps nine voice applications users can launch from inside Facebook, including GrandCentral, RebMe by Rebtel, Phonebook by Jangl, MyPhone by Jaxtr, SkypeMe, One Minute Friend, Yakpack, Sitofono and the new conferencing application for Facebook released by iotum.

GrandCentral Number Porting Affects 434

GrandCentral has had a few number porting issues of its own. CEO Craig Walker says GrandCentral had issues with 434 customers whose numbers could not be seamlessly transitioned from one underlying supplier to another.

What happened is that a supplier of numbers and connections "sent us a notice that they’d be exiting certain markets and disconnecting some phone numbers in 30 days," says Walker. GrandCentral immediately began porting the numbers to a larger carrier partner. But 434 couldn't transparently be moved.

Those users had to be assigned new telephone numbers in the same area codes they already were using. Going forward, GrandCentral is emphasizing working with large, reliable providers committed to providing these services long term.

"Although this affected only 15 of the local areas where we offer services, out of nearly 8,000, we take this matter seriously and have done everything to make the disruptions as limited as possible," says Walker.

That is the way to handle an unplanned outage.

One Reason why Skype is Not Growing So Fast

Jaxtr allows free international calls using mobile phones. Jaxtr says its membership has doubled to 500,000 users in the past month, and is signing up new users on the Web at a rate of more than 12,000 a day.

And then there are Jajah, Jangl, Rebtel and GrandCentral as well.

"No download is required, and our direct numbers can be dialed from any type of mobile phone or even ordinary landline phones," Jaxtr CEO Executive Konstantin Guericke said, contrasting its Web-based approach to certain complexities of other services.

Google and GrandCentral

Some of you know I am a big fan of Google and GrandCentral. Well now Google owns GrandCentral. And while Google can not fairly be said to desire to be a communications service provider, that is precisely what GrandCentral is. A provider of a unified communications service, not a unified communications network, though. So count Google as among those firms now offering a unified communications service.

Some might see this as competition for Skype or Jajah (I use both), and there is some logic to that notion. For the most part, I don't see it that way. Google now is a provider of unified communications. That's the story.