Google Voice has been much discussed with its impending widespread public release. I gave it a whirl over the weekend, and it seems quite nifty. To tie in loosely with my last post about novel methods of reducing mobile phone costs, it seems you can use Google Voice and Gizmo to make free PSTN-terminated calls.

Gizmo is a free VoIP client, which can be installed on a variety of PC and mobile platforms and provides you with a SIP number. Google Voice can be directed to forward and even connect calls to this number. Since domestic calls made through Google Voice are free, we seemingly have a neat system of free calling here.

Some instructions can be found on a Google forum, though some users in the thread report problems connecting the calls to Gizmo. Very interestingly, a blogger describes using this method to make free calls on his Android phone over the 3G/EDGE network.

Perhaps free-as-in-speech VoIP nirvana is not as far off as I had feared…