In a move that will thrust Internet search giant Google into direct competition with the Internet telephone company Skype as well as with telecommunication providers, Google Wednesday announced the roll out of a service within Gmail, allowing users to make over-the-Web phone calls to mobile phones and landline numbers.

The Google Talk VoIP service, which is initially being rolled out to the US users, will require users to install a voice and video-chat plug-in to their browsers; and make a call either using the microphone or speakers of their computer or a headset. 

The new service has a fairly easy-to-use interface, featuring a dial pad on the screen’s bottom right side for typing the digits. Moreover, since the new VoIP chat feature is integrated with the users’ Google address book, the mere typing of a contact’s name gets their number to appear.

Noting that the Google Talk VoIP capabilities will make Google a more omnipresent part of people’s social interactions, Forrester Research’s telecommunications analyst Charles S. Golvin said: “It’s one place where you can get in touch with the people that you care about, and how that happens from a network perspective is less important.”

Initially, till at least the end of the year, calls made to numbers in the US and Canada will be free; as against the other international calls charges that range from between 2 cents per minute to many countries to 98 cents per minute to Cuba.