GMail offers free calls within U.S., Canada

I missed a phone call from my brother on Sunday -- I didn't get to the phone on time, but I saw who had called from the caller ID. So I called him back.

"John," he asked, staring at his own caller ID, "why are you calling me from Escondido, California?"

I wasn't; I was sitting in my living room in Shelbyville. The reason he was getting an unfamiliar message on his caller ID is that I had called him back using GMail.

Google introduced free domestic telephone calling last week from within GMail, its free e-mail program.

"You mean, Google Voice?" my brother asked.

I misspoke and told my brother they were two separate things -- Google Voice, as I understood it, has to do with receiving calls, and lets you set up one phone number and route calls to, or retrieve voice mail messages from, your landline or mobile phone as needed.

But actually, I find that the new service is considered a part of Google Voice, even though most of last week's news coverage had to do with the fact that you could find it from the GMail page.

If you have a GMail account, or set one up, and you have Google Chat enabled, you will see "Call phone" as an option in the left column. The first time you click on it, it will install calling software on your computer. You can then make free domestic calls to the U.S. or Canada, or you can buy credits to make international calls. (I haven't comparsion shopped, but news coverage last week indicated that the international rates were very competitive, in spite of the fact that Google claims this revenue is what's subsidizing the domestic calls.)

The service is easy to use, provided you have an inexpensive headset, the type some people already have to use for Skype calls, or even just headphones and a microphone of some sort.

If you don't already have one, you can find a headset easily anywhere that sells computer accessories.

Once you start dialing, the software will suggest telephone numbers from your GMail contacts, if you have any. That can be sort of annoying, because sometimes the suggestions obscure your view of the keyboard, and if you're dialing a number that is not on the list you have to click to make the list go away so that you can see to keep dailing.

The other glitch is that you have to keep the Google web page open while the call is going on -- on my first attempt, I closed out the web page and accidentally hung up on my brother. This holds true even if you use the popout command to move the dialing keypad into its own little browser window -- the GMail window must still be kept open or your call will be terminated.

Sound quality, however, seemed good on both ends of the conversation.

The calling service is not yet enabled for those who are using the GMail interface for their own self-hosted e-mail domains through the service called Google Apps.

Google reported that more than a million calls were placed during the first day of service last week.

Many people, of course, routinely do their long-distance calling with their mobile phone, since many mobile phone plans offer free nationwide long distance. But that still eats up minutes from your cell phone plan. If you're looking for an alternative way to make long-distance calls, it might be worth giving the free service a try -- even if you have to set up a (free) GMail account just for that purpose.

Just be sure and tell people you're not really in Escondido.

--John I. Carney is city editor of the Times-Gazette and covers county government. He is also the author of the self-published novel "Soapstone." His personal web site is lakeneuron.com.