BT’s Ribbit Mobile looks good
Other telecoms cvompanies may be watching Google Voice closely, especially as it goes mobile. But BT is determined to make sure Google does not have have it all its own way. British Telecom has extended its Ribbit internet telephony platform to mobiles, despite having no mobile network of its own, with the unveiling of Ribbit Mobile.
Ribbit Mobile was developed in 2007 , as with Google Voice, users can transfer calls from an existing mobile number and as well as gaining the features of more open IP telephony platforms, can also forward calls to Skype, MSN or Google Talk Accounts
The strategy is not just about BT trying to become an open web services provider and take on Google – an approach adopted by some other carriers seeing their walled gardens and customer control collapsing. It is also about injecting new value into the existing voice platforms and deriving new revenues and customer bases from an apparently declining market. Its broader aim is to merge its voice business with the web and push ahead of Google and Skype in also adding value to the mobile voice experience.
BT acquired Ribbit for $105m in 2008 and made its founder Ted Griggs CTO of BT Voice. Ribbit had been set up a year earlier with the goal of being “Silicon Valley’s Telephone Company”. , the deal showed BT taking positive action ahead of most carriers round the world to face up to the collision of the fixed and mobile voice business with the internet.
Ribbit Mobile uses BT’s core software platform and network infrastructure to deliver an advanced call management service that combines a user’s phones, a web interface and mobile apps (running first on the iPhone and BlackBerry, assuming Apple doesn’t block the service as it did Google Voice). Ribbit Voice is available for a free trial and later will cost $30 per month for the full offering.
Its features are more wide-ranging than Google’s, including ‘Voice 2.0′ elements like multiple ring and web-based calling. It aims to be a full platform, with the APIs open to third party developers to extend the services – BT hopes one of the first results of this will be an Android client.
At the back end, there is integration with BT and Level 3 networks, and the ability to terminal calls on VoIP systems like Skype and Google Talk. BT said that the “The back end of what Ribbit does is very ‘telecommy’ and ‘Internetty’ – we bring the two together.”
It certainly looks like BT is getting it’s act together, if you look at Rabbit Mobile and BT’s 21st Century Network giving BT the ability to provide Video on Demand.
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