Google Product Manager Pierre Lebeau has announced via a Google blog that Gmail users outside of the U.S. will soon be able to call any mobile phone or landline directly from Gmail.
Last year, Google offered that service within the U.S. Over the next few days, Google will open the service in 38 new languages.
International users will be able to make phone calls from Gmail, or other Google services such as Google+ that support Google Talk. You can call or video-conference with people for free over Google Talk, but you’ll have to pay to use Google Talk to chat with people on conventional phones in other countries.
“You can now buy calling credit in your choice of four currencies (Euros, British pounds, Canadian dollars or U.S. dollars) and there are no connection fees, so you only pay for the time you talk,” Lebeau said. He continued, “To help reduce the cost of staying connected, we’re also lowering our calling rates to over 150 destinations around the world. For example, it’s now only $0.10 (or ?0.08) per minute to call mobile phones in the U.K., France or Germany (landlines are $0.02/min), $0.15/minute to call mobile phones in Mexico and $0.02/min to call any phone number in China and India. The complete list is available on our rates page.”
U.S. and Canadian users will be able to make free calls within their countries for the rest of 2011.