Technology / Internet
Free voice calls through Google Hangouts
11 Sep 2014 at 16:59hrs | Views
Google has announced that its hangout users can now make voice calls from Hangouts on Android, iOS, and the web.
"It's free to call other Hangouts users, it's free to call numbers in the U.S. and Canada, and the international rates are really low," said Amit Fulay, Product Manager of Google+ Hangouts.
"To get started on Android, just grab the new version of Hangouts (v2.3, rolling out over the next few days), then install the accompanying dialer to turn on voice calls," Fulay explained.
On iOS and the web, voice calls will be available to hangout users the next time they open the app.
According to the Google Voice team, there are still some control features and settings that haven't made the move to Hangouts yet because the team decided to focus on the primary functions first and then take on some of the edge cases later.
For the time being, iPhone users will only get support for Google Voice calling. SMS and voicemail support is coming "soon," according to Google.
As a part of this update, Google is also dropping the price of its international calls from Google Voice. Google's rates were already quite competitive, the company is constantly negotiating its rates, and that allows it to pass its savings on to its users now. For some countries, this means Google was able to cut rates in half (from $0.02 cents to $0.01 cents in some countries), but there are also a few where the prices remained stable.
"It's free to call other Hangouts users, it's free to call numbers in the U.S. and Canada, and the international rates are really low," said Amit Fulay, Product Manager of Google+ Hangouts.
"To get started on Android, just grab the new version of Hangouts (v2.3, rolling out over the next few days), then install the accompanying dialer to turn on voice calls," Fulay explained.
On iOS and the web, voice calls will be available to hangout users the next time they open the app.
According to the Google Voice team, there are still some control features and settings that haven't made the move to Hangouts yet because the team decided to focus on the primary functions first and then take on some of the edge cases later.
For the time being, iPhone users will only get support for Google Voice calling. SMS and voicemail support is coming "soon," according to Google.
As a part of this update, Google is also dropping the price of its international calls from Google Voice. Google's rates were already quite competitive, the company is constantly negotiating its rates, and that allows it to pass its savings on to its users now. For some countries, this means Google was able to cut rates in half (from $0.02 cents to $0.01 cents in some countries), but there are also a few where the prices remained stable.
Source - online
