The good news from Google never does end! The company has announced that it has extended the period of the feature using which Gmail users are able to make free phone calls to the U.S. and Canada, through 2011, meaning that this feature will remain to be free next year.
One may ask how exactly is a call executed through Gmail? Well the service is easily accessible via the Gmail page and if one uses gChat, There’s a phone icon bearing the words “Call Phone” right underneath the status message of the user and when this phone icon is pressed, a dialpad window is launched within Gmail allowing the user to call any number in the U.S. or Canada, absolutely free.
Earlier this year, back in August to be exact, Gmail got the calling feature and Google had said that using this feature, users can make such calls free “for at least the rest of the year,” while international dialing rates started at $0.02 per minute.
The service proved to be a hit after its launched as a staggering number of 1 million calls were placed within 24 hours of the launch and many people had already termed it as a potential Skype killer, regardless of the fact that there hasn’t been much said about the traction the service is getting since then, the extension of free calling throughout 2011 will definitely help the service in maintaining its current large number of users as well as entice others to join in.
Have you used this to make calls yet? Let us know how you find the call quality to be in your comments below.
Via Mashable