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One thing to note: the blog post says that calls in US and Canada are free at least through the end of the year. I asked about this during the Q&A (seemed like
by jkincaid 16y ago
One thing to note: the blog post says that calls in US and Canada are free at least through the end of the year.
I asked about this during the Q&A (seemed like a pretty big asterisk) and they said they have every intention of keeping it free as long as they can, provided that the margins on international calls cover the expenses for the free US/Canada calls. Fingers crossed.
- ugh 16y agoWait, what? They use the rest of the world to subsidize their free US/Canada calls? That’s certainly a convincing reason for me (= rest of the world) to never ever use that service.
- thrdOriginal 16y agoWhy? If the prices are still cheaper than what you would pay otherwise, would you still boycott it? This isn't a novel business concept - airlines do this too with business/first class subsidizing economy - does this mean you don't fly either?
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- tuxychandru 16y agoLook at it this way. When I fly business or first class I'd be subsidizing for those who can't afford a normal flight cost. I don't think it would be right to claim whole of US can't afford paying for GMail calls while the entire world outside it can pay more to keep it free for Americans.
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- EventHorizon 16y agoI don't know what the setup is here at work, but it worked for me and I am in Canada....
- levesque 16y agoWell.. I'm in Quebec, Canada and just tried it. Works for me. Unless they plan to remove support for Canada at a later time...
- deleted 16y ago[deleted]
- MikeCapone 16y agoReally? I thought they were only rolling it out in the U.S. at first. I don't see it in my gmail here in Canada. Here's to hoping..
- levesque 16y agoI had to install the plugin first by going to gmail.com/call, then after restarting my browser, the call phone line appeared in my google chat panel.
- qusiba 16y agoI've already installed the plugin a couple of days ago and I tried to reinstall it. It just doesn't work. I'm in Quebec. I am eagerly expecting it.
- tuxychandru 16y agoIt can also be interpreted to mean that international call from US will be charged. As long as these calls make up for the cost US-US and US-Canada calls would remain free. It is not that rest of the world that will subsidize. It is the international callers who'll.
- ugh 16y agoAh, that makes more sense. Like Google Voice, this will probably not even be available for the rest of the world for a long, long time. Still sucks, but less :)
- ZeroGravitas 16y agoIt appears to me, just because I've got my country/language set to US English.
- joezydeco 16y agoI don't think that's really the case. I can call Germany for $0.02 with gVoice and that's pretty much the cheapest I've ever seen for a international rate. Even my family over there can't call the USA for less than EUR 0.019 (which is MORE than gVoice)
- DeusExMachina 16y agoMaybe you intended to say 0.19. 0.019 < 0.02
- ugh 16y ago0.019 Euro > 0.02 US Dollar Watch the units :)
- DeusExMachina 16y agoSorry, my fault. This really teaches me to read better comments, especially here on Hacker News. Thank you for pointing this.
- sandipagr 16y agoHell no! As long as it is still cheaper and the service is as good, I am going to use it. I saw the international prices and I am going to end up paying almost half to what Skype charges. So, I am definitely in!
- myth_drannon 16y agoI checked the rates and they are similar to Skype , basically very expensive. I use LocalPhone and very happy.
- sandipagr 16y agoTo call Nepal, skype was 0.39 while google is 0.19. I just checked localphone and it is 0.149. very cool! How is the service of LocalPhone? Would to love to know your experience and looking forward to give it a try.
- d4rr3ll 16y agoI may be slightly biased as I work for Localphone, but we pride ourselves in delivering a quality service for a reasonable price. The cool thing about this that Google have opened up is that you can call any of our (Localphone) US access numbers for free from your Gmail inbox, and then take advantage of our cheap rates to compete the international leg of the call.
- sandipagr 16y agoThe fact that I have to enter the pin and password turned me off. Rebtel is a similar service and they give me a new local phone number for each international number. They are a bit expensive compare to localphone but atleast I don't have to enter any of these pin and passcode stuff. Also, the free test call does not really work. When I end up creating an account, it says you have no funds. where did test call go?
- myth_drannon 16y agoI think the quality is the same . It's mainly the problems of the destination infrastructure, I usually never blame Skype or LocalPhone. But I found that for LocalPhone on weekends , sometimes the lines are busy (Montreal,Canada) so I have to wait couple of hours to be able to call - but it's very rare.
- edanm 16y agotuxychandru has it right. From the article: "Calls to the U.S. and Canada will be free for at least the rest of the year and calls to other countries will be billed at our very low rates." And: "If you’re not a U.S. based user—or if you’re using Google Apps for your school or business—then you won’t see it quite yet." Also, you might want to check out the rates (they do seem pretty cheap for international calls, but I'm not an American so I don't know the standard): https://www.google.com/voice/rates https://www.google.com/voice/rates,
- raquo 16y agoAre you going to use a service that is worse and/or more expensive then? If their international rates are competitive, there's nothing wrong with that. Not all services are profit centers. Some need to be subsidized. Others should be subsidized for strategic/marketing reasons (which is likely what we see here).
- eli 16y agoSure, and the people who buy AdWords subsidize search for the rest of us who don't. So?