This weekend news surfaced that Google has put aside a $4.6 billion war chest to try and obtain the 700 MHz spectrum. If Google succeeded they could provide unlimited wireless broadband internet to cell phones and computers. As Mike Arrington highlights, Google wants to have four “key platform rules” adopted:

1. Open applications
2. Open devices
3. Open services
4. Open networks

See anything consistent there? They want to open it all up. In return they will bid $4.6 billion. This would be massive and something that consumers would thoroughly support. The only problem? AT&T and Verizon. They are lobbying hard against having this approved. That’s completely understandable given that Google’s offering would deal a massive blow to the two companies. When it comes down to what is in the consumer’s best interest though, the FCC needs to look past the lobbyists just as Mike Arrington suggested. Unfortunately the FCC doesn’t have a clean slate having not acted in the consumer’s best interests many times before. Will they do it again? I sure hope not.

According to Techcrunch Google is acquiring GrandCentral. If you don’t already know what GrandCentral is, it is a free service that allows you to use one number for all of your phone numbers. It will automatically forward calls to your any of your other phones that you specify and has value-added features. This includes a feature that automatically emails you an mp3 file of your conversation directly to your email as soon as you get done with a conversation. There are a bunch of other cool features as well. Bottom line, their service is really slick and it is not surprising to hear that they have been acquired.

According to the Techcrunch article, the company raised less than $6 million in venture capital, so any buyout is most likely greater than $30 million. While they hadn’t been generating revenue yet, their technology is far superior to competing offerings. If you want to have a single phone number for all of your communication, go check out GrandCentral. I guess Google is looking to go head on with Skype, and the purchase of GrandCentral will definitely help them get there. So who won’t Google go after?

After being shut down, AllFreeCalls has returned as yak4ever. After signing up and filling in phone numbers of your friends and family you can make international calls for free. AllFreeCalls shut down around the same time that Futurephone.com shut down. Both services utilized regulatory-fee arbitrage to generate revenue. Ultimately it is financed via tax subsidies. The new area code seems to be based out of Deluth, Minnesota while the old one was based in Iowa. I’m not quite sure how long this site will manage to be up for but I’ll surely use it to call my family living abroad.

Yak4Ever.com is a product of serial telcom entrepreneur, Pat Phelan. Pat also has a successful business called Roam4Free . Roam4Free enables users to receive free calls via mobile. I purchased a Roam4Free when I travelled to Europe earlier this year but unfortunately I left the card at home! I haven’t had the opportunity to test it out but I’m sure it’s great! While I’m not sure how long Yak4Ever will stay around for, go sign up and yack for now.

About 6 months ago, a small website Futurephone.com came out with a new service that allowed you to make free international phone call by simply dialing an Iowa phone number. Once you were connected you typed in the international number and were immediately connected. I personally used this service a number of times to call my family members abroad. As of today the service no longer exists. As it turns out, AT&T got stuck with a $2 million per month bill as a result of the “free” service. Futurephone.com (and I’m assuming the alternative service allfreecalls.net) utilized regulatory-fee arbitrage. As Alec Saunders explains:

The 712 model, as I refer to it, is really a variation on the 900 number model, but financed by taxpayers. Take a low cost call, terminate on a high cost carrier, and pocket the difference.

So basically the service was financed by tax subsidies. Amazingly enough these sites are actually making money from the service. I doubt that allfreecalls.net will last much longer following the lawsuit by AT&T against Futurephone.com. Oh well, it was fun while it lasted!

Today I got an email notification that I had been added to the Jaxtr beta. I signed up and now have added a small link on my sidebar for the time being to see how well it works. Jaxtr enables users to click the link on my sidebar and then call a local number to contact me without disclosing my number. In all honesty, I’m not quite sure why I wouldn’t just post my phone number on my blog, but that is neither here nor there. Like I mentioned in a previous post, I’m not quite sure how valuable these web based VOIP solutions are given that in some countries (such as Israel), it is cheaper for people to call long distance than locally. I’m not quite sure why this is, but I know that it is the case with my sister. Anyways, try it out, and let me know what you think.

Just the other day an interesting keyword showed up on my hittail account, “Nimbuzz”. Soon after a review showed up on MobileCrunch. I’m not sure why searches for Nimbuzz were showing up with my site, but either way I decided to take a look to find out what all the buzz about Nimbuzz was.

Nimbuzz provides three primary services:

• Nimbuzz Mobile
• Nimbuzz for Windows
• Nimbuzz Web

Ultimately, these services allow the user to call their IM buddies on their mobile phone or PC at the cost of a local call. While this service sounds great to those that live in the United States and have to pay more for long distance, the benefit provided for international users is not always that great.

A few months ago, I signed up for Rebtel which provides a similar service. I call up a local number and I am connected to my sister in Israel. Once the call connects, my sister is given a local number that she calls and we are both connected via the Rebtel system. The only problem with this is that my sister apparently has to pay more for local calls on her cell phone than international calls. I’m not sure if other people face the same problem in other countries, but someone needs to come up with a workaround for this.

Either way, I predict that alternative services will enable me to make free or cheaper calls to my sister, such as Skype on your cell phone. Additionally, I’ve tried services such as Futurephone.com and AllFreeCalls.net. With those two services I have been able to call my father in Belgium for free, but have yet been able to contact my sister in Israel. AllFreeCalls.net claims that I can call my sister, but Futurephone.com does not provide service for my sister’s area code. Either way, I’m sure a solution will become available soon with the current boom in VOIP solutions.

I have seen some pretty cool stuff on the internet but this ranks at the top. Jaxtr, a startup company founded by Philip Mobin and Tourag Parang is in the process of releasing a pretty slick widget on the web. Jaxtr offers users the ability to contact you by phone by attaching a simple widget within your blogs and emails (eventually I’m guessing IM as well). This is very similar to the click to call feature on google maps. While Google decided to temporarily abandon the service due to the onslaught of prank phone calls, this feature is a great addition for the blogger who is focused on self-promotion.

Any active blogger who uses their blog to generate business will find this a great addition. On the other hand, I’m not quite sure how useful this is to add to a generic MySpace profile (although I’m sure that commercial users of MySpace will find this addition useful). This service turns the web and social networks into a dynamic phone book, pretty cool.