Google Hangouts adds free voice calling from India

Great news for folks living in India that would like to call up friends and family in Canada and the United States, use Google Hangouts and that call is now free!

The Google India team has announced that starting immediately all Hangouts users in India can enjoy the new calling freedom. They also want to remind you that if you splurge for a bit of credit for your account, you can use it to make calls around the globe at excellent rates, and get the first minute of your call for free. Just don’t abuse the free minute, or they’ll cut you off.

Here’s how it all looks for users in India. You can call from Hangouts to any other hangouts user around the globe for free. Calling to numbers in Canada and the U.S. is now also free, and great rates apply for calls elsewhere. Strangely, the free calls do not appear to go both ways, so your friends and family in North America will still have to pony up a fwe cents to call you. You’ll need to initiate the call either from the Hangouts app within Gmail on your computer, or install the Hangouts Dialer on your Android device to get started.

As mentioned, head on over to the Google Play Store to grab your copy of the Hangouts Dialer to get started.

I know you are already off making phone calls, but if you get the chance, let us know how the service is working for you. Is Google Hangouts voice calling holding up to your expectations of the service?