Gmail users get free long-distance.

You Can Even Call This Phone from Gmail.

Since 2008, Google has offered free voice and video chat, but only from computer to computer.

Now, Gmail users (in the U.S.) can place domestic phone calls using their computer’s microphone — to “regular” phones — either mobile or land-line phones. In other words,  the call recipient does not need to use a computer.

Google has added this new telephony service to their growing collection of telephone and voice offerings.

And even better, calls from Gmail can be placed to telephone numbers within the US …for free.

Actually, Google says that calls to the U.S. and Canada will be free for “at least the rest of the year (2010), and calls to other countries will be billed at our very low rates.” Complete details can be found on the Gmail blog: Call phones from Gmail

Good sound quality.

In our tests, we found the sound quality of Gmail-based phone call to be excellent: indistinguishable from a standard land-line handset, and better than most mobile phone calls.

Our test calls were made using a good quality USB microphone-headset, one that performs well for voice-recognition and VOIP: Jabra’s GN2000 USB.

Cheaper microphones (especially non-USB desktop microphones that plug into your computer’s Mic port) may introduce unwanted background noise.

How to make free phone calls from Gmail.

• Gmail users must be signed in to chat and have Google’s voice and video chat plug-in installed.
• To initiate a call, click the Call phone link at the top of the Chat roster
• When the Call window opens, you can can dial a phone number, view your call history or add credit if you’d like to place an international call.

This is a great service to use in lieu of a second phone line, or to conserve the minutes on a mobile phone calling plan. As a free service (for now at least), calling from Gmail offers an alternative to services like magicJack, Skype, and other low-cost, computer-based VOIP services.

You may want to check out these other free services from Google:

• Google Voice — A feature-rich service that links your home phone, mobile phone, and any other phone to a single Internet-enabled voicemail service
• GOOG-411 — A free “411” information service to retrieve business phone numbers: just dial 1-800-GOOG-411 from any phone.

Receiving phone calls in Gmail.

Google Voice users: You can also receive phone calls placed to your Google Voice number inside Gmail

Screen your Google Voice calls using Gmail by clicking the screen  button. You can listen to your caller as they leave a voicemail. If you wish to interrupt and actually answer the call, simply click the Answer button.

Do you have ideas for using this service from Gmail? Share them with a comment below!