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Skype Offering SkypeOut Service for Free
Skudd writes "In an effort to boost new customer acquisition, Skype has begun offering its 'SkypeOut' service for free. The free service is slated to last until December 31, 2006." From the article: "While the SkypeOut service will allow free calling to regular phones, the company will continue to charge people to get calls using a service it calls SkypeIn, which costs about $38 for an unlimited 12-month subscription. Consumers can get the service for three months for about $12.80."
Note to submitters/editors: Not everyone lives in US/Canada.
Check this site out for other gripes concerning rogers.
Telecom service companies need to go down. Communication companies should be charging what the service is WORTH.
http://www.ihaterogers.ca/
I'm looking forward to calling my current land line provider, AT&T, and tell them I'm switching because of their choice to hand over phone records to the NSA. I'm sure VoIP won't be much more secure, but I hope if enough people do this they get the message.
Sadly, PS/2 was yet another victim of USB, which doesn't care what you plug into it, the electrical slut.
One of Skype's biggest perks is cheap international calling. Submitter sucks, should have put that in the summary. It's in the fucking article's title, fps.
I hate grammar Nazi's.
Did Skype suddenly form a new partnership with someone to handle these calls?
Or is this some sort of grab for customers so that they can have more P2P nodes?
Just some initial thoughts.
No - I tried it today and it Just Works(TM).
"E pur si muove!" - attributed to Galileo Galilei, 1564-1642
Skype is the AOL of VOIP and they are desperate to get everyone into their camp before people realise that they can have the world if they stay outside of that camp. True VOIP offers you the same freedom that the real internet offers those that are/were not AOL subscribers. I have a dial in line for free on VOIP and I can dial out for free already. I can call many countries for free. I do not need a restricted cobbled service just because it has a good marketing department.
I love stacking my barbecues in the shed at the end of summer - you can't beat a bit of grill on grill action.
It's only guaranteed until the end of 2006. So most likely it's one those things to get people hooked on using the service and more willing to pay the charges after this year. But hey, the business model works for drug dealers. Once you get addicted to the sample drug, you'll be a long-term customer.
Conspiracy theory: The reason is free is because it's funded by the NSA, that way they won't need to ask anyone for phone records. Shhhhhhhhhhh
Just tried calling my cell phone on it from my old Powerbook G4 Ti @ 500 Mhz with OS X Tiger. Works -excellently-. No activation or anything needed to my account. Downloaded latest version, ran it, and it worked right "out of the box".
"Everything worth innovating today will go to court tomorrow."
December 31, 2006. After that, They are unsure of what they are going to do. I remember a company called dialpad years ago that did something similar, except in reverse, they started out giving unlimited free calling to anyone. Then they cut it down to 10 minutes, 5 minutes, then 1 minute and then they were forced to shut down because no one would subscribe. I'm sure this isn't the case with Skype but given they're past record I'm not sure this is a good idea.
Restore the madness of youth's lechery
I already have a cellphone that has enough monthly minutes that, for as little as I use the phone, it might as well just be unlimited. And I can take it with me anywhere, too.
Nonetheless, it's kind of neat making these free phone calls with Skype and hearing the people's voices come out of my computer speakers.
Have to see if I can get through to Dial-a-Song at 718-387-6962. Now it's free if I call from home as well as work...
Editor Emeritus and Senior Writer, TeleRead.org
no. I didn't have to.
I tested it by creating a new UID. The first two times I tried calling a friend's mobile phone, I got error messages. The third time and every time after was smooth sailing. The sound isn't the best, not cell phone quality, but it works. The number showed up as "000123456" on the recipient's phone, so its usefulness is limited; those who screen calls would likely not pick up, and since you can't get incoming on it without upgrading - well.
If you have an outgoing number, I'm sure you can solve this issue by being issued an incoming number. IMO, it seems to be a loss leader of sorts, to get folks to upgrade to paid service.
un burrito me trampeó.
Almost everyone who has a cell phone has free domestic long distance. This sounds like an amazing offer, but it's giving people nothing they didn't have before. It might get a few more people to actually try Skype, but the practical uses of this offer are almost nonexistent.
Anyone know why?
I have an IP starting with 7 and skypeout calls still consume credits.
Same problem here. I just paid $10 for free calls and consumed 7 cents to test it out. What a scam!
I've been using SkypeOut for quite some time now. I first purchased SkypeOut credit in Oct. 2004. My main motivation has been that my brother lives in Beijing and I live in Toronto. But I also talk with other family and friends quite regularly using the feature. One thing I've noticed: my connection and audio quality tend to be better to when I'm talking to my Brother in Beijing than when I'm talking to my wife while I'm travelling in the US. Skype has gradually become more and more important in my suite of communication tools. I'd much rather Skype someone than email them. I used to use Yahoo! messenger and ICQ quite a bit. I've completely stopped. Maybe they've improved, but Skype's conference call/chat feature has been extremely helpful. I did an hour-long 3-way business call between Toronto, Baltimore and London in the UK for only a few dollars!
All that said, there's a problem too: I've been using it on my laptop and it means carrying around a headset with a microphone. The built-in mic is terrible. For anyone adopting Skype as a phone replacement (which it sill isn't for me), this is an important consideration. The big "discount" they are giving with free SkypeOut in North America will probably help adoption here a little, but I'm not convinced it will make a really big splash. I think they need to figure out a nice way to integrate with a cell-phone-like headset that still works through one's computer/laptop or on one's wireless LAN. This would be the item that would allow me to get rid of my home/office phones.
Helping with organizational effectiveness is our job.
I do a lot of work with Asterisk and have investigated pricing on inbound and outbound rates to such an extent that it would be considered obsessive.
With most VoIP, inbound call phone numbers are at least as expensive to get as outbound when you get to any kind of volume. I'm not talking about 1 line for a few bucks, or a few test lines at fixed cost, but the ability to just recieve a bunch of calls at once on a phone number. It comes down to about $18 (US) for the ability to recieve each concurrent inbound call. You can get unlimited at a penny or two per minute per call, but that ends up being more expensive if you do good pooling with a fixed number of lines. Outbound can be as little as half that.
Where is the cost in all this? The cost is the connection to the copper based system. At some point, somewhere, someone has to get paid for a link to that big addressing system.
The sick part is, most of the big telcos are doing voip any way, and their ability to hold onto that master address space is the key last item for them to hold the power to charge what they do. ENID (including free systems) are functional -- and can work just like DNS -- but the providers wont use it.
There's a system (ENID based, I believe) that would allow any number you dial from your regular phone or cell phone to be checked against a registry, and if a voip address is listed for it, the telco could bypass the entire infrastructure and route the call directly to the person you called over voip. So if I registered a voip address to my phone number (which I have done) and you called me from say, Verizon Wireless, they could route the call to me without going over a single bit of big telco as anything other than VoIP. No telco switching involved. It would bypass my per-minute inbound costs entirely other than my internet connection.
It works if you call from a voip phone that knows about the registry (Asterisk based systems, for example can do this). The telcos and cell companies don't do it. Why not? As a whole, they make their money by controlling that master address -- the phone number.
The problem with quotes on the internet, is that nobody bothers to check their veracity. -- Abraham Lincoln
As a poor student who moves to a new town every four months because of the program i'm in at uni (yay co-op), i GREATLY appreciate Skype making my calls free.
1) Because i move all the time, i don't maintain a landline;
1) All of my family and friends are out of town;
2) cell phones in Canada haven't been deregulated yet and Rogers, Bell, Telus, etc., charge through the nose and other unpleasant orifices.
Skype is making my life a HECK of a lot easier. I've tried it already... a lot... and it works wonderfully.
Also this is a good way to compete with Yahoo! Messenger, which was recently upgraded to use the same voice codec as skype.
It should be no surprise that different VOIP providers offer different levels of support, service and infrastructure.
I don't know about rogers per se, but if Roger's voip is anything like what its counterpart Shaw is offering, it deserves to be more expensive, its run on a dedicated network, separate from their broadband internet service -- meaning it doesn't rely on your internet being up!
This dedicated network is also independantly powered and with backup, right down to including a battery backup for your voip modem, meaning you can even make or receive a call during a power outage! Its really almost at the same level as POTS, and light years beyond what other voip providers can even theoretically provide in terms of infrastructure and reliability.
Of course you *do* pay a premium for it but it really is competing with POTS from the local telecom on a completely separate level from what you'd see from a Skype or Vonage. Its not for everyone, some of us don't need that level of infrastructure, fault tolerance, or reliability. Some of us do.
Just to note, there are a few security concerns about Skype, its ownership by eBay, and potential security holes within the Skype network. Be aware of what you're using when you're using it.
Editor Emeritus and Senior Writer, TeleRead.org
You know, it's great that I find out when I spend money on Skype, doesn't benefit me, but rather, a nation far away that already has a lot of their telecommunications provided for free.
Yeah, maybe I shouldn't be so selfish, but then again, when a good paying wage for a fulltime job is 200USD, here. Not even enough to pay for a small apartment a month, in this country, I'm thinking more in terms of self preservation.
If connection costs to other telecommunication systems were really the issue, then they would allow people to call US numbers from Europe (and other places) for free.
A thought occured to me, I some how doubt AOL users will have problems placing calls to the US for free, since the IP ranges used in AOL ISPs are shared internationally.
Change is certain; progress is not obligatory.
http://www.voipbuster.com/ ...
;-)
;-)
http://www.sipdiscount.com/
http://www.voipcheap.com/
voipdiscount.com
voipstunt.com
gives... well... around 40 countries free! (well... you pay 10euros for 2 or 3 months and you can call a lot of countries for 0 cent/min or 1 cent/min)
I use it a lot (with sjphone) and for this price... this is unbeatable! But for a good VOIP, you need a good High Speed Internet Access! A delay of 1 or 2 seconds and cause a hang up before you can even try to say "hello"
sip compatible with any hardware SIP or softphone like sjPhone (mac, pc, linux, pda...)
sip server: sip.voipbuster.com (port 5060)
domain: voipbuster.com
stun server: stun.voipbuster.com
sip server: sip1.sipdiscount.com (port 5060)
domain: sipdiscount.com
stun server: stun.sipdiscount.com
etc
Good phone cards to Asia that beat Skype are hard to find. And Skype is way easier.
I hate grammar Nazi's.
I've been using Skype for a couple of months with a mic/headset combo and it has been surprisingly good. One of the benefits of Skype is that you can make conference calls. This is something I've never done at home with a landline. I had $9 Skype-Out left and don't know how I'm gonna use it up now(-:
I've never tried it, but I know some people who have attempted to use fax machines on other VoIP systems with mixed results. I believe the problem stems from the psychoacoustic compression (e.g.: G.729) that's used to reduce the bandwidth requirements of calls: it's very low bitrate and designed for speech only, and doesn't have anywhere near the data-carrying capacity of a standard POTS line.
I think some VoIP systems (Vonage) are smart enough to increase the bandwidth so as to not block fax and data calls completely, but how well it works I don't know. I'm not sure what codec Skype uses (and I suspect nobody outside of Skype does, either), but judging from the audio quality I think it's compressing pretty hard. And if the artifacts are that audible in speech, I can't help but think that a data transmission is probably going to do poorly. YMMV based on network conditions, though.
For outgoing faxes, especially if you only send them occasionally, it might be worthwhile to give it a shot. The cost savings might be worth having to try it a few times to get it to go through, or for it to transmit very slowly. If you receive a lot of faxes though it might be a bad idea, since you can't ever be sure how many times the person on the far end will retransmit if the call fails the first time. Having a fax machine that only works some of the time, to me, is worse than not having one at all since you wouldn't be able to trust it.
"Ladies and gentlemen, my killbot features Lotus Notes and a machine gun. It is the finest available."
I just installed it and completed an hour long phone call to a landline. I used the cheap out-of-the-box microphone that came with my Dell, and my computer speakers (not headphones), just like a speakerphone.
Worked beautifully. Neither I nor my friend had any problem hearing, and it didn't sound like a speaker phone all -- none of those typical speakerphone "click on/click off" noises at all. We could even both tallk at the same time, with both of us more-or-less audible. It was just about as if my friend was in the same room as me. (Some of the credit is probably due to my soundcard.)
I did have a major CPU utilization problem with Skype until I uninstalled McAfee's firewall, which made the audio terrible. McAfee had long been disabled in favor of (the free, better, not reliant on IE and Active-X) Kerio, but I hadn't gotten around to removing it entirely. Once removed, no problem with Skype at all.
Also, as I have Windows XP SP2, it was necessary to install this TCPIP.sys patch to get around Microsoft's "helpfulness".
Opinions on the Twiddler2 hand-held keyboard?
I was able to test the free SkypeOut by calling my home phone from my PowerBook, but not without some difficulty. At first it wouldn't dial the number at all -- apparently you need to use a bit of a special incantation to get it to dial.
On my first attempt, I tried to do a ten digit dial (xxx-xxx-xxxx), but it wouldn't let me dial out. So I next tried adding a 1 in front of the number (1-xxx-xxx-xxxx), but again, no-go.
The trick? You must put a plus sign ('+') in front of the 1 (that is, dial "+1-xxx-xxx-xxxx"). Then it works just fine. But otherwise, it doesn't work at all -- the call button will be completely disabled.
I wonder however if this won't be ripe for abuse. All Skype calls show up as being from 000-012-3456, and I just know there are some asshats out there who are going to start using this for obscene phone calls, or other negative abuses of the system.
Anyhow, if you can't get your version of Skype to work, try it with the + symbol in front of the 1. On the latest Mac version at least, this is the only way it will work correctly.
Yaz.
So what happens with the money that's already on my SkypeOut account? My current balance is only valid until Sept. 29, which is well before the Dec. 31 end of this offer.
From their Terms Of Service page: "A credit balance for Skype Credit expires 180 days after the last chargeable use of the Skype Credit. Credit balances that are not used within the said 180 day period will be lost."(emphasis mine) I assume that means that free calls don't count as "chargable use" so even if I place SkypeOut calls every day for the next few months my money would still disappear at the end of September?
If that's the case, looks like I'll be submitting a refund request. Don't misunderstand me - I'm definitely not complaining about free service, but if I end up losing all my current balance then it's not free.
Now that I think about it, I wonder how many people will be burned by this and all these 'unused' balances will go straight into Skype's coffers.
Duct tape is like the Force. It has a light side, a dark side, and it holds the universe together.
That system is not called ENID , but ENUM.
"In short, a server with ENUM support will lookup a dialled telephone number in DNS to see if there's alternate ways to set up the call instead of just calling out on the PSTN telephone line. ENUM may contain a reference to a SIP URL, a telephone number to dial, a web page or an e-mail address. "
if they had held out for a year or two longer ... well, they would have been Skype.
Skype's strength is its ability to scale. Dialpad wasn't using p2p the way Skype is, and that is the difference. It is a minimal increase in cost per user to grow Skype, but the profit is there. This doesn't apply to SkypeOut, but since they are charging for that they can cover costs (this promotion aside).
The current promotion in North America is just to raise adoption, and as Skype said themselves, the cost is low enough to make it feasible. Skype needs to grow in this market to reach the success that is expected of them, and this is a way to speed up the growth.
I use Gizmo. They may not use an opensource client, but they do use OPEN PROTOCOLS (skype...) Their linux support has alsa been much better for me. Oh, look at that freudian slip! Yes, ALSA actually works without glaring issues. I'm even using it with an external usb microphone! They may not be offering free callout, but for 10$ you get 1000minutes that will not expire for two years. Those same minutes can be used anywhere in the world for the standard rates.
Now, sorry that sounds like an advertisement, but a slashdot article on skype a little while back had me interested in this area, though I knew as soon as I saw skype that it wasn't for me. There is another provider that uses an open client as well, and had the same rates as Gizmo, but I cannot remember them from the top of my head.
Gizmo Project Anyone have links for other "open" providers. I really think they would compliment this article quite well.
Seems this is only for the US and Canada. Maybe Slashdot needs to orient it's writing more to its global audience? (:
On a side note, VOIP (Skype) and Ryanair (low cost airline in Europe) is the very reason me (in Norway) and my girl (in Portugal) manages to keep together even tho the distance is enormous. Being able to go to Portgal for the price of an expensive bus ticket + almost free comunications = truly united Europe.
Problem is that technically VOIP is NOT a phone service.
Phone in most (all?) countries are goverened by a strict set of regulations regarding billing, level of service etc. etc.
VOIP on the other hand is a novelty application for the internet and
is not geverned by any regulations and cannot paricipate in many regulated
telephone services. The problem with 911,999,912,914 type services is
that the service provider is supposed to supply subscriber details and
location details to the emergency operator. "133t5ax0r" at rackspace
is not quite detailed enough.
Old COBOL programmers never die. They just code in C.
And you think it is less secure than your home phone?
I can tap your home phone remotely with 10 dollars of equpment from Radio Shack.
Even if the data is totally unencrypted, it is orders of magnitude harder to tap someone's internet connection than their phone connection. Anyone can splice in a twisted pair to recieve all your incoming calls and attach a small RF transmitter with a few miles range, and odds are great that you would never even notice it, or the jack box on the side of your house. It is much much more difficult to tap DSL or cable, decode the call, can transmit that. You'd need a large amount of kit by the house, something that would get noticed easily.
At least with Internet phones the number of people who can reasonably tap in is a bit more restricted (people working at any of th einfrastructure point sbetween your house and theirs). With the PTSSN it's basicall a free for all - anyone can tap in at any point in the line from the wall of your house to the pole - and all they need is a $2.99 handset.
Most of the rest of us have to pay a high monthly fee, or alternatively, do what I do - use prepaid, so I pay $100 a year for my cellphone (still a lot more than free, but it's the best I can get), which gives me over 1000 minutes. 100 minutes a month is more than I need, because I use Skype for my longer "chat" calls to people in the US and abroad.
So, for those of us who can't get free cellphones, Skype already helped make telephony very cheap, and has now made it even cheaper.
On the downside, I use T-Mobile for my prepaid, because it's one of the better prepaid deals, but while its coverage is great where I spend 99% of my time, I usually lose it when I go on a trip. On the upside, when I go to the rest of the world, I just plug in a GSM SIM card and have a local cellphone for very little money.