Google Voice service launched in New Zealand

Gadget Herald: Search engine giant Google has launched its Voice service in New Zealand on Thursday. The new service by Google offers users low-cost calls from Gmail to regular landlines and also mobile phones.

The service was rolled out with the first Google account holders in the afternoon. It is a Skype-like service which charges US.02 cents for a minute to call to a landline. On the other hand, Skype charges the same call for US 2.3 cents for a minute.

For calls to a mobile phone, the user will be charged US 20 cents for a minute against Skype’s US 32 cents. Before making the first call, the user is supposed to add a minimum balance with the help of the credit card.

Google Voice requires the users to have a minimum balance of $US 10 against Skype’s charges of €10. When the voice quality of the service was tested in the afternoon, users stated that voice seemed to echo and the correspondent had given up in 15 seconds. Still the service had deducted the amount from the account. For now, there seems to be some problem in the voice quality. Over all, could this be not such a good attempt for the company in terms of quality?