SkypeIn Reaches Beta Users

galdur writes "Skype quietly released a new 1.2 beta featuring SkypeIn (in US, UK, France, China & Hong Kong), central voicemail (for those not using the free 3rd party SAM or Pamela), and finally centralised contact list. SkypeIn is the opposite of the company's SkypeOut, allowing you now to receive normal telephone calls through Skype."

Comments

Import tools - odd choices (re changelog)

[CdBee]

Why on earth would they support collecting/importing contacts from Opera but not Mozilla/Thunderbird?

what are they aiming for?

[virtualone]

i think they are trying to puch the commercial skype platform in favor of an open standard, like enum. the great ease-of-use combined with well-thought technology (nat traversal, codec) may very well succeed, if there is no open source alternative established with the same features.

what about national regulations?

[xlyz]

It will be interesting to see how they will deal with each national telecom regulations.

Re:what about national regulations?

[Bushcat]

They'll just sign termination agreements, like every other player on the planet.

Quietly?

[h042]

"..Skype quietly released..."

Oh well...

Nope

[The Cisco Kid]

The missing piece for me would be the ability to use a standard telephone, with an ATA (eg like the SPA-2000) with their service. I have no interest in using a PC soundcard (however hi-fi it may be) as a telephone.

Re:Nope

[bloxnet]

There are a number of Skype compatible phones. Some plug into your USB port and are similar to normal cheapie handsets. There are also cordless phones, most of which are dual landline/Skype compatible.

Check the Skype website for a starting point for examples, then hit Froogle.

Re:Nope

[Spoing]

1. The missing piece for me would be the ability to use a standard telephone, with an ATA (eg like the SPA-2000) with their service. I have no interest in using a PC soundcard (however hi-fi it may be) as a telephone.

Do you want something like this? It's cheap, provides a standard RJ-11 phone jack, and supposedly is compatable with just about any VOIP service out there. I haven't heard any complaints about it.

The only gotcha is that it *does* use the sound jacks to do the conversion to/from RJ-11 plus a USB port for power only (no data). The result is that you can use any standard phone and do not have to use an analog headset or buy a much more expensive ethernet-to-RJ-11 converter.

China & Hong Kong?

[cynix.org]

The article incorrectly states that SkypeIn is available in "China & Hong Kong". It's only available in Hong Kong, not mainland China.

Re:Opensource alternatives?

[Qwavel]

In this case I'm more interested in open protocol alternatives. That would allow multiple clients (including open source ones) to compete.

Skype is not all bad - they do provide a Linux client - but the proprietary protocol is a big problem.

Re:This is good.

[SteveDob]

I live in the UK and have family in the US. I now have a US based SkypeIn #, unfortuately not in the state in which my family live. I pay the (15% VAT inclusive) 11.50 euro for three months, they pay for calls to my US number. I also use SkypeOut to call them at 1.7 eurocents/minute.

To quote from Skype's own help pages "The SkypeIn number is a regular phone number so any charges that might regularly occur from calling a number in that location still apply."

So, no premium calling, no extension number , mo hassle :)

Why I prefer Skype to an Open(TM) solution

[WhiteWolf666]

I'm a fairly big Linux person.

I run nothing but Linux on my desktops, and I purchased a Powerbook about 6 months ago.

I know my way around computers. I can take them apart, put them together.

I've futzed with non-supported and almost supported hardware for a long time.

I'll be damned if I can get a SIP solution that will work anywhere near as well as Skype.

I want it on my Mac.
I want it on Linux.
I want it to traverse NATs with (at best) minimal setup that I can describe to someone over the phone.
I want it on Windows. And I want the Windows version to talk to the other versions.
I'd prefer an easy install (no mucking around with text config files), so that I can point other people at a download, and have them install.

I've even tried to come up with some kind of similar solution myself, create a package my friends/family could download, but it just isn't possible to do with the current 'open' solution.

So I point them at Skype. They can download it, and install it with no problem.

The ONLY time they ever have problems is when they forget to plugin the microphone, or plug it in to the wrong port.

These are not stupid people. These are well eductated, and generally economically succesful.

But they only have a modicum of computer knowledge, and when push comes to shove, they can get Skype working.

Re:OSS not only matches but betters Skype

[dangermouse]

Let's review.

On the one hand: Skype is easy to download, set up, and use; supports every major PC platform and is cross-platform compatible; offers free calls (with no recurring fee) to other Skype users; and offers extremely cheap calls to POTS phones.

On the other: Firefly is single-platform and charges a minimum of twice what Skype does for POTS calls; you didn't mention a softphone that actually uses E164 or DUNDi, and there's no reason an end user should give a damn; ditto that last point for IAX; again for Speex; and I can't find any information about what free interconnects are available, if any, at vonage's website or at firefly's or at FWD's (and FWD doesn't even provide POTS service)-- and interconnects don't matter to me anyway, if my friends are all using Skype.

So I could just grab Skype and have other people grab Skype and we can all use it. Or I can fret and worry about implementation details I don't have any real reason to care about, and pay more for the same service or try to cobble together some frankensolution on the cheap, which nobody else will be able to use with me.

I think I know which one I'm gonna go with for the time being.