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Google’s Voice App and Fi is Momentarily Waiving Int’l Calling Prices To Ukraine
Google Offers Free Voice Calling To Ukraine Through its Dedicated Voice App
Google stated yesterday that its Voice VoIP service and Fi MVNO would no longer charge calling rates to Ukraine. In addition, the business offered an update on Project Shield security.
Google Fi, like other carriers in the previous week, has abolished international calling expenses from Ukraine and from the United States to Ukraine. Google Voice also provides free calls to Ukraine using the following per-minute Ukraine tariffs, which are currently $0.00 for personal Gmail accounts:
- Kiev, Ukraine
- Ukraine – Fixed-line telecommunications
- Lviv, Ukraine
- Ukraine – Mobile
- Astelit – Ukraine – Cellular
Meanwhile, Google said that it is still seeing “DDoS attempts against several Ukraine sites, including the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Ministry of Internal Affairs, and services like Liveuamap aimed at helping people discover information.” Its Project Shield programme secures around 150 Ukrainian websites. According to today’s amended blog post, this includes news media and humanitarian groups, as well as Ukrainian government and diplomatic websites:
We have increased eligibility for “Project Shield”, our free DDoS protection service, so that Ukrainian government websites, embassies throughout the globe, and other governments close to the crisis may remain online, defend themselves, and continue to provide critical services.
According to Google, it has “communicated its availability to Ukraine government officials.” The Ukrainian Alarm (овтрнa тривоа) app is also highlighted on the Ukrainian Play Store so that Android users may access official air raid sirens on their phone:
Ukrainian developers collaborated with the Ukrainian government to produce this app to provide improved air raid alerts. Google Cloud credits are being made available to humanitarian groups, and the company is donating $10 million to “organisations giving both urgent humanitarian help and longer-term support to refugees in Poland.”
It adds to Google’s prior $15 million investment, which was divided between employee matching, direct grants, and advertising credits.
