Users of Google’s social services are now able to make free international calls to a number of countries; for the first minute. After the initial minute is over, users are required to pay for the standard rate as seen here.
In order to be eligible for the free minute of call time to landlines and mobile numbers, users are required to have some calling credit in their Google accounts. This is so that Google can charge the user in the event that the first minute is exceeded. Besides that users can only receive a free minute of call time to 25 countries.
The countries that are eligible for the first minute are as follows:
- Australia
- Belgium
- Brazil
- Canada
- China
- Dominican Republic
- France
- Germany
- India
- Indonesia
- Ireland
- Italy
- Japan
- Mexico
- Netherlands
- Norway
- Peru
- Poland
- Russia
- South Korea
- Spain
- Sweden
- Switzerland
- The United Kingdom
- United States of America
In this case the offer only applies to landlines and mobile numbers, as the regular VOIP service is still free of charge. Most users will be calling each other over Google Hangouts anyway. For the most part, most countries are left out from the eligible list and international calls will be charged as normal; although it should be noted that Google doesn’t actually charge that much for these calls to begin with.
[Source: TechCrunch] [Images: Google]
