Goog-411 is a free service provided by Google and according to their FAQ and Information pages available the service is to be free to the general public from any phone whether it be a payphone or landline or mobile phone. Over the last week I noticed that Goog-411 is not allowing access to its service from payphones anymore and so far Google has made no announcement as to the reason for any block of it's service to Payphone users.

Google currently provides minimal support for it's Goog-411 service and I did send two e-mails to Google which have gone unanswered. I am not sure if it is simply that a set range of telephone numbers have been blocked from using Goog 411 or if its all payphones.... I do know that I tested their service from 15 randomly located payphones this week and each payphone made a weird "beep beep beep" noise when trying to access the Goog411 service which is not the case in the past.

I then tried calling Goog411 from two different landline phones and funny enough the call went right through so I think Google has failed at providing notification to it's users that it has either blocked calls from "All Payphones" or just "Some" or that they are having some sort of service issues that they are currently working on. So far this blog is the first blog to take notice to this problem in the Goog411 service and I will post updates as more information becomes available.


Excerpt from Goog411 Website (http://www.google.com/goog411/) :
You don't need a computer, an Internet connection, or even the keypad on your phone or mobile device. GOOG-411 is voice-activated, so you can access it from any phone (mobile or land line), in any location, at any time. For free.