Google has announced a new feature that will provide customers with option to make phone calls from within their Gmail registry using the Google Voice service.

The new Google VoIP service is based on voice and video chat for Gmail, first appeared in 2008, by applying the Gmail interface to forward calls to individual's mobile and wireless phones. As it was before, communicating parties had to be in front of their computers.

"Given that most of us don't spend all day in front of our computers, we thought, 'wouldn’t it be nice if you could call people directly on their phones?' “Google software engineer Robin Schriebman stated in his post.

The drive to extend its IP-based communications service from the PC to the phone, appearing as Google VoIP communication service, is a direct competitive challenge to Internet VoIP companies like Skype, which declared half of billion registered users already.

The integration of such a service into Gmail could also be a massive input to further tight binding of users' Google accounts as the hub of the Web, merging the Google VoIP service with video chat, e-mail and other social geeks. This new feature could also offer one more hint about how Google's long expected social networking service might be built up, which is foreseen to appear as the search giant's most direct competitive move against Facebook to date.

Google VoIP is offering the new calling service at very reasonable rates, with calls to the United States and Canada to stay free of charge through at least the end of the year, and charging international calls according to the pricing list for ‘’Voice’’ the Google Web telephony product.

With Voice, customers are able to register their existing phone numbers, or subscribe for new one, and operate features of voicemail transcription, searchable voicemail and SMS messaging via e-mail.

Users with a designated Google Voice number can receive calls from within their Gmail accounts, the company officials said.

Google is now stretching set of those features to the new common calling feature, which will start to appear in form of clear Google VoIP service as an app in the chat lane of users' Gmail accounts as the product rolls out recent month.

Google is aimed to expand the product internationally, and it is expected that it is also considering a business release of Google VoIP version.

Company might continue to offer domestic calls for free if it gets sufficient revenue from international charges. Calls to international landlines are as cheap as two cents a minute in the case of countries such as the United Kingdom, France and Germany, though rates increase dramatically for calls made to mobile phones in those countries