Google announced yesterday free voice phone calls via GMail to the U.S. and Canada and calls to other countries billed for as little as $0.02 per minute. (Here’s their price comparison table.)
The feature was rolled out to everyone in the U.S. today. (If you don’t see the feature yet, try logging out of Gmail and signing back in.) It looks like GMail users like it: This afternoon Google tweeted that there were 1 million calls placed from Gmail in 24 hours.
Farhad Manjoo is impressed:
In my tests, the new service worked easily and flawlessly. You simply type a number or contact’s name into the new Gmail calling-pane and hit “Call.” Google’s engineers built a sophisticated echo-cancellation algorithm into the system, so calls sound clear even when you’re not using a headset. You don’t need a Google Voice number to make outbound calls from Gmail, but if you want to receive calls, you’ll need to be a Voice user. (Sign up here.) When someone calls your Google Voice number, you can answer in Gmail in addition to all your phones. All of Google Voice’s call features work inside Gmail—you can jump into a call while someone is leaving you a voicemail, you can record your calls, and you can switch calls between Gmail and another phone while you’re in the middle of a call. […]
The most interesting thing about Gmail calling is what it tells us about the future of the home phone. Yes, people are ditching their landlines. But that doesn’t mean that cell phones will replace home phones—for now and for the foreseeable future, in fact, cell service is likely to remain one of the buggiest and most expensive ways to make calls when you’re at home.
Instead, the future of the home phone lies in calls routed through the Internet using services like Skype and Google Voice. Soon, with innovations like the one Google built into Gmail, you’ll be able to make calls from pretty much every device in your home—not just your smartphone, laptop, or desktop, but also your tablet computer, your digital music player, your TV, your stereo, and probably your toaster. Indeed, a lot of this is already possible; you can make Skype calls on your iPad or iPod Touch, for instance. What we’ll see over the next few years is a more seamless transition between these devices—you’ll be able to answer a call from your TV and then switch it to your cordless, say—and, over time, the general merger between the Web and your phone.
Manjoo goes on to predict free calls from home phones forever. Maybe. I’m not quite so confident about that as he is. After all, even Google only promised it for “at least the rest of the year.”
The feature requires that you install a plug-in to make outbound calls. To promote the service Google is setting up retro phone booths in airports and colleges.