Thursday, July 28, 2005

Skype Out is Great.. Check it out

skypeI have been using Skype for a while and find it very useful to call my friends and colleagues anywhere in the world as long as they are Skype users. Just this week, I experimented with SkypeOut and find it an excellent tool, particularly during my frequent international travel.

SkypeOutI was in Singapore this week and had to participate in several international conference calls. Generally, I would use my calling card to get on to these calls, but this time I used SkypeOut and found it very useful and extremely economical. In fact, my calls to US toll free numbers were free.. Yes free.. Can anyone beat that ?

So what is SkypeOut? Simply put, its the ability to make calls to any phone number from your PC through the Skype software. As Skype puts it, where you call to matters and not where you call from. So, my calls from Singapore to US cost me less than USD 0.03 cents a minute.

Skype also has something called SkypeIn in beta. This assigns a phone number (from many countries) to your PC so that people can call you from the 'regular phones'. But I haven't played with it yet.

For those uninitiated in to Skype.. Check it out.. Very useful tool.. to call next door or across the continent. Its by far the best VOIP SoftPhone I have used.

7 comments:

  1. u might wanna check out "The Gizmo Project"

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  2. Krishna

    Thanks for pointing me to Gizmo Project.. I scanned through their site..Looks similar to Skype..

    Good to see that there is competition to Skype now.. R&D cycle will move fast now..

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  3. Visu,
    How does it work with Dialup?

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  4. Narayanan

    Haven't tested it with dial up.. My usage has been only with a broadband connectivity.. But in India, broadband is defined as 256K.. So, Skype might work OK with dial-up as well..

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  5. Visu,
    Definition of Broadband.! LOL :)

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  6. Skype is cheaper to call developed countries. Calling cards still work out cheaper for India calls.

    Gizmo offers a free voicemail service.

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  7. Kaps

    You are absolutely right.. Calling cards are still cheaper to call countries like India..

    The major difference I see with Skype is that Where one 'calls from' doesn't matter.. only 'call to' matters.. This a major shift..

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