By MICHAEL LIEDTKE
The Associated Press
Published: August 30, 2010
SAN FRANCISCO - Google Inc. is adding a free e-mail feature that may persuade more people to cut the cords on their landline phones.
Unveiled Wednesday, the service enables U.S. users of Google's Gmail service to make calls from microphone-equipped computers to telephones virtually anywhere in the world.
All calls in the United States and Canada will be free through at least the end of the year. That undercuts the most popular PC-to-phone service, Skype, which charges 1.2 to 2.1 cents a minute for U.S. calls.
It also threatens to overshadow another free PC-to-phone calling service called MagicTalk that was just introduced by VocalTec Communications Ltd.
Skype, Google and many other services have been offering free computer-to-computer calling for years.
Google hopes to make money on its PC-to-phone service by charging 2 cents or more a minute for international calls.
The international rates will vary widely, sometimes even within the same country.
People also will be able to receive calls on their PCs if they obtain a free phone number from Google or already have one.
The phone numbers and technology for the new PC-calling service are being provided by Google Voice, a telecommunications hub the company has been trying to expand. It was an invitation-only service until two months ago when Google Voice began accepting all number requests.
Google disclosed last year that it had assigned about 1.4 million phone numbers through its Voice service, which can field calls made to a person's home, mobile or office number. Craig Walker, a Google product manager who helped develop Voice, said the service has expanded its reach since then.
Google plans to promote the service by setting up red phone booths at universities and airports across the United States. People will be able to make free calls from the booths to U.S. and Canadian numbers and save on international calls.
To widen the service's appeal, Google plans to enable people to transfer, or "port," their existing home or mobile phones to Voice.
The added competition comes at an inopportune time for Skype S.A., the Luxembourg-based company that recently filed plans for an initial public offering of stock.
Skype has 560 million registered users, including 8.1 million paying customers (most people use the free PC-to-PC service). After four years under the ownership of eBay Inc., Skype was sold to a group of private investors in November for about $2 billion.
The company has been doing well since the sale, earning $13 million on revenue of $406 million during the first half of this year.
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Voice your opinion by posting a comment.1Posted by (MrBill) on 08/30/2010 at 08:23 am.
I have used MagicJack for over a year. Will forward calls to wherever i request, unanswered calls go to voicemessage that is forwarded to my email account. Not bad and for cheap.
International calls coming in and going out are easy too.
Posted by (NurseRatched) on 08/30/2010 at 01:50 pm.
Landlines would disappear for good if only they could find a way to replicate the dropped calls and awful audio quality of a typical cellular phone. Or maybe cell phones could improve from their third-world audio quality and performance. Nah...
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Tuesday, August 31, 2010
Landline phones growing obsolete Google Voice installing phone booths
via www2.tbo.com
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