Watch out Skype – Google Voice is offering 2 cent calls
In their never ending quest for total world information domination (or something like that), Google have now added calls to regular telephones from your Gmail account. For some time you’ve been able to have voice chat and video chat through Google Talk but this is the first time the Googleplexers have stepped their Google communications suite out of the G-bubble and into the real world of telephone calls with Google Voice. Presently you can call for free only in the US and Canada (and only until the end of the year), while in the UK, Germany, France and interestingly China will have to pay 2 cents a minute (pre.) Clearly this is a big stab at the heart of Skype but it’s yet to be seen whether Google can topple the world’s best known VoIP provider with some 550 million or more users. Google Voice does have some interesting features though, including allocation of a Google Voice number which you can set to ring any or all of your contact numbers. Smart. Currently this is all still through a desktop browser but it’s not a great leap of imagination to think that Google will filter their new technology to their own Android mobile operating system. It does however remain to be seen how this will work in China – will the communist government allow encoded communications or has a deal with the big red and the big G already been struck?
Google Voice is currently only in the US but will be rolling out to the other test nations in the near future. Watch Google’s video here for an animated overview.
Posted by: Ian
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