The company behind the US-based internet search engine looks set to launch a free telephone service that links users via a broadband internet connection using a headset and home computer. —Elizabeth Judge —Google gears up for a free-phone challenge to BT (Times Online)
The acronym BT isn’t explained in the article… from the context, I’m assuming something like “British Telecom”?
An interesting detail from midway through the article…
Around the world, thousands of miles of fibre-optic cable remain unused because the amount of speculative development vastly exceeded demand. Such capacity would be available at rock-bottom prices today.
The author speculates that Google may use this underutilized resource, thus helping it connect two forms of user behavior — searching the web (where Google gets more than half the world’s business) and telephoning.
Actually, from what I’ve heard, this is a somewhat heavily watched/traded commodity. Try a search on “Dark Fiber” for more…