Google is rolling out video and voice capabilities for the chat function that is embedded in the Gmail interface. It’s a bare-bones voice and video-conferencing service, but it’s simple to install and use and is a very good addition to Gmail.

It’s no Skype, though. Gmail Video and Voice, as it’s called, can’t connect to the plain phone network, as Skype’s paid service can. And there are plenty of other optional features missing, like a voice call recorder.

I found a demo of voice and video quality on the service excellent, although to be fair I was connected from CNET’s corporate network to someone at the Google campus. I do expect Gmail Video quality to be a bit more consistent than Skype, since unlike the point-to-point architecture of Skype, Gmail Video traffic all runs through Google servers. I expect that Google has the bandwidth and server capacity needed.