Google Gmail VoIP Calls Now Official; Skype Who?

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It didn’t take Google long to realize that people actually like VoIP calls since they’re almost free, considering that someone is still paying for that Internet monthly bill, and unlimited, so why not offer it to their customers straight from Gmail?

That’s right, folks, in case you’re used to rely on Skype to do all the VoIP calling for you but also have a Google account, then you might want to check out Google’s take at Internet calling.

All you have to do is install the new Google Call feature and you’ll be able to call your friends and family straight from inside Gmail. Calls to the USA and Canada will be free for the remainder of the year while calls to other countries are going to be “really cheap” and by cheap Google’s means around $0.02 per minute to countries like UK, France, Germany, China, Japan, and many others.

It gets even better for those of you that use Google Voice. Your number will be displayed as the outbound caller ID when making calls from inside Gmail so everyone will know who’s calling them next. And yeah, you can receive calls straight to your Gmail account using the same Google Voice number.

So how long before this feature becomes available to Android, and not only, smartphones?

The only bad news here, besides Google stepping in one more niche which it plans to conquer, is that the service is only available to U.S.-based Gmail users, so international customers will still have to wait before being able to use Google’s VoIP solution. Google does say that they’re “working on making this available more broadly” and we should probably believe them too, since most Google services are available almost anywhere by now.

So, in case you want to know how it works check out the promotional video made by Google, and available right here:

Okay, okay, it doesn’t really show you how Gmail Calls work out, but it’s really supposed to be a very simple service to set up, isn’t it?