I live in Gmail. I travel a lot and need to communicate with people all over the world. Regular email and Instant Messaging is great, but sometimes a phone call or video conference is necessary. Now Gmail has voice calls and video conferencing built in. Google today announced Gmail Voice and Video Chat.
Calls to the U.S. and Canada will be free for at least the rest of year, and calls to other countries will be billed at very low rates. Take a look at this rate comparison chart. Calls to the U.K., France, Germany, China, Japan, and may others for as little as $0.02 per minute.
Dialing a phone number works just like your normal phone. Just click "Call Phone" at the top of your Chat List (left side bar of Gmail) and dial a number, or enter a name from your Contact list.
As a Google employee I have been using Gmail Voice and Video Chat for months. The calls are clear and crisp. The Video Chat is absolutely amazing. Great video quality, no latency or jittering. Many times I simply use the built-in camera and microphone in my MacBook Pro laptop. The quality is great. If I want even higher quality, or don't want to disturb the people around me, I use a headset and mic. Even better quality! At Google we have a video conference bridge server so we can do multi-party video conferences....right from our laptops. Very convenient!
Gmail Voice and Video Chat is being rolled out to users in the U.S. over the next several days. Try it out and let me know what you think. It may take a day or two to see it in your Gmail. Refresh your browser and look for a notification like this.
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