Free mobile voice calls through Google Hangouts

tsume said:
So...is Skype relevant anymore?
I think Hangouts now does everything which Skype does, plus group chats are free.
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Group chats/Skype calls have always been free on Skype, video conferencing used to be a premium feature but has been free for a while now.
 
tsume said:
So...is Skype relevant anymore?
I think Hangouts now does everything which Skype does, plus group chats are free.
Click to expand...

Hangouts does a better job IMO, but has some quirks including defaulting to showing your cam when you initiate a call.
Skype... well, its not going to be so easily uprooted after being the first easy to use consumer VoIP solution.
 
Whoa. Google messing with carriers' cash cow here.

I've grabbed the Hangouts Dialler, but don't have access to the Hangouts 2.3 update yet. Has anyone received the update through official channels yet?

tsume said:
So...is Skype relevant anymore?
Click to expand...

For video calling, Skype seems to handle bandwidth constraints better than Hangouts does in my experience. Upstream is the problem: Hangouts needs a bucketload of it for the video to be smooth.
 
Jan said:
I've grabbed the Hangouts Dialler, but don't have access to the Hangouts 2.3 update yet. Has anyone received the update through official channels yet?

For video calling, Skype seems to handle bandwidth constraints better than Hangouts does in my experience. Upstream is the problem: Hangouts needs a bucketload of it for the video to be smooth.
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1. Nope haven't had the update come through as yet
2. I find Hangout video of much better quality compared to Skype. Probably use it on an average of 3 - 4 hours/day
3. Hangouts integrates into Ubuntu a whole lot better than the Skype in my experience and the Windows 7 application is just irritating!
4. The above being said, Skype works really well for audio calls that require very low bandwidth
 
Jan said:
I've grabbed the Hangouts Dialler, but don't have access to the Hangouts 2.3 update yet. Has anyone received the update through official channels yet?
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Download links of the Hangouts 2.3 APK can be found here. I download most Google app updates from there a while before they filter through to the Play Store. I've never had an issue.
 
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I wish we could use Google Voice here in SA.

Calls to South African landlines are priced at 0.03USD (R0.33) per minute, while calls to mobile phones will cost 0.07USD (R0.76) per minute.
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Apart from the prices above, one would have to factor in the cost of mobile bandwidth.

At the moment I pay 60c/minute (any time, to any network) with MTN prepaid. So for the time being, these prices from Google are not all that compelling to me.

For calls to other mobiles with Hangouts, this will be great. Lets hope the sound quality is good enough over our mobile networks.
 
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tsume said:
So...is Skype relevant anymore?
Click to expand...

Skype handles over 2 billion minutes a day of calls, and international Skype-to-Skype alone has overtaken all traditional international phone traffic combined. Whenever they release stats I'm staggered at massive it is, and gets so little press, and to top it off, it's still growing fast, like 30%+/year.

It's still relevant.
 
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This is not anything new.

Calls to the US & Canada have been free for years through Google Voice. I got a number when it was launched, right after they bought Grandcentral, which developed the technology originally.

They just moved the functionality to Google Hangouts now.

The title of the article should have included 'to the US & Canada' by the way. The logic conclusion that most SA forumites would draw from the existing title is that it applies to us.
 
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So the Whatsapp call feature should also drop soon? And then how long until VC and MTN start charging their "alternative" VOIP data rates?
 
CuppaJoe said:
...

The title of the article should have included 'to the US & Canada' by the way. The logic conclusion that most SA forumites would draw from the existing title is that it applies to us.
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We are so used to being part of the "... this service might not work in all countries and territories immediately.."-bit that no one probably expected to be able to use the service in SA.
 
Is there a way for a Hang-out users to receive calls from a normal land line/ Cell network i.e. a number?.....Or is that only for US customers?
 
AstroTurf said:
You see the magical universal translator wizardry they will be implementing in skype soon?

http://www.geek.com/microsoft/micro...ns-skype-into-a-universal-translator-1595044/
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Sounds very promising. I will watch the video later.

I suspect, though, that all Google's translation services and voice recognition (e.g. Now) are all in preparation for real time translation. The day they launch such a product, it will blow everyone else out of the water. They have been gathering data and experimenting so much longer.
 
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