I just installed Google Voice on my T-Mobile Google Phone. (I’m sure that’s not the technical description of the model. I think it’s HTC something or other.) What stands out immediately is that Google Voice takes over the phone and does all the calling. All of it. When I call people from the phone, they no longer see 415-XXX-XXX (my AT&T number), but my Google Voice number: 415-YYY-YYYY even if I use the phone’s built in address book. Google Voice isn’t just a dialer, it is a new phone. Talk about number portability. Also keep in mind that Google has announced number portability for Google Voice. Meaning: as a customer of the service, I will have the option of moving a cell phone number, for example, to the Google Voice service.
Now, (here comes the speculation), if Apple has an exclusive deal with AT&T until some date in the future, Google Voice would likely break that deal since it transfer the phone ipso facto to a new carrier: Google Voice. That’s right: Google Voice highjacks the phone. Yeah, other applications continue to use T-Mobile or AT&T, etc. for data. But as a phone, when using Google Voice, the phone has a new carrier. This is (likely) why the FCC is interested in the events of the rejection of the Google Voice application from the iPhone App Store. It is, in effect, a case of blocked number portability. How that fits into any contractual obligations Apple has to AT&T and vice versa is anyone’s guess.
BTW: Google Voice on the T-Mobile gPhone works very well. But I can see how both carriers and phone makers could see it as a trojan horse taking over the phone function and then, what next? Applications for Google Voice, anyone?
