Skype's Free Phone Call Plan Will Soon Have Annual Fee

The New York Times is reporting that Skype has said it would begin charging $30 a year for unlimited calls to landline and mobile phones within the United States and Canada. From the article: "As a promotion, Skype began allowing its users to place free domestic 'SkypeOut' calls from their computers to traditional and mobile phones last May. At the time, the company said the promotion would extend only through year's end. The company is offering a half-price subscription to those who sign up before Jan. 31. Calls from one computer to another have been and will continue to be free."

Re:Why Skype ?

[Morgon]

I think part of it is the marketing aspect. People started hyping it to others, who hyped it to others, etc.
But also, it's an ease-of-use aspect, too.

Its most popular aspect (or at least, what made it the most generally popular over the course of this year) is the no-BS landline (and cellphone, which will be grouped with 'landline' for this post) calling.
There was this other service hyped either here or Engadget (or both?) that was supposed to be some Skype-killer, but it wasn't as free as they said it was (I don't think it was money, but you had to do *something* to get the free calling). Other ventures have applied a rate to it.
Up until the end of the year, the outgoing calls are free, with no hitches. Just download and go.

After that, it's just a cyclic effect - people pimp Skype, so Skype gets easy third-party tools (such as specialized phones) which are co-branded, and only serve to strengthen the name.

I wasn't aware that TeamSpeak had an outgoing landline calling feature. I do PC-to-PC calling, but it's only to one or two people, and they just use Skype anyway. Most of my time with it has been for calling long-distance. I don't have an unlimited plan on my landline, and I don't get service inside my house with the cell. (And even then, daytime minutes aren't free)

So it's popular because I think it just kinda fell into place that way.
If some other software comes along that does COMPLETELY free, no-bull landline calling, and can get some decent press-time, AND is just 'install and go' (i.e. no SIP configuration, etc) it'll eat away at Skype's market share.

And if you want that to happen, start revealing your big free-calling secrets now before the year is over. :)

Skype.com disagrees....

[GweeDo]

The SkypeOut page [skype.com] says it will only be $14.99. I always recommend taking the word from the good old horses mouth.

Re:Patent search, anyone?

[Anonymous Coward]

This is nothing new Ingenio has had click to call in ads as part of their pay per call system for almost a year. Skype is playing catch up, not inovating

Re:Skype.com disagrees....

[jfclavette]

From the page linked:

Unlimited Calling gives you a full year of unlimited calls to anyone, on any phone, within the US and Canada for just $14.95.
($29.95 after January 31st 2007)

It's also mentionned in the summary.

Re:Why Skype ?

[jaaron]

Skype is P2P (unlike SIP), so you're almost always being relayed through 3rd, 4th and 5th parties (and so on).

Also, the skype client is supposed to throttle the amount of bandwidth it uses, but whether it actually does this or not is another matter.

Re:Why Skype ?

[nine-times]

There was this other service hyped either here or Engadget (or both?) that was supposed to be some Skype-killer, but it wasn't as free as they said it was (I don't think it was money, but you had to do *something* to get the free calling).

Maybe you're thinking of Gizmo [gizmoproject.com]? It advertises itself as free, but it's only free between Gizmo users. So, you can call a landline for free if another Gizmo user has that number listed as his landline in his profile, or something to that effect. And they also say that if you use to too much, they'll start charging you for it, but they never say what "too much" use would be.

I tried it out a while back, when it was being hyped. It was fine, but wasn't terribly useful for me (personally) for the same reason other VOIP stuff isn't that helpful for me: I have a cell phone, and I'm pretty much never in a situation when I have internet access but no cell-phone reception. If I wanted useful wireless internet access, I'd have to go through a cell phone company anyway.

Re:Classic Marketing

[Anonymous Coward]

In their defense, $30 a year is quite reasonable. I was expecting something more like $30 a month. And we were given fair warning [slashdot.org]--we were all quite aware that when they introduced free skype out that its "Free as in Beer" may turn into "Free as in iPod" by year's end (ya didn't even have to RTFA--it was in the summary).

I think skype does a great job and $30 is a decent price. If only the cell phone people would get together and provide a simple yearly-paid service at a reasonable price. At this rate, Skype on a PDA could become a viable option for a cell phone replacement.

Good Luck paying for it

[Anonymous Coward]

Skype has some serious issues with billing. Their CC processor rejects most peoples GOOD credit cards. I had 3 perfectly good cards rejected when I tried to purchase SkyeIn. After looking in their forums, I see I am not alone. There are literally 100s of posts by people who could not pay with their billing system and to add salt to the wounds Skype was ignoring the trouble tickets they created for their problems.

Maybe their software is ok, but their billing system sucks and the way they treat their customers having problems is basically unheard of, especially when you consider the problems they are having is they are trying to PAY Skype but CANT.

Re:Why Skype ?

[Anonymous Coward]

4. Same client, multiple platforms thanks to Qt.

They use different clients on different platforms. The Windows version is written in Delphi.
Linux and Mac version are way behind on version numbers.

Ekiga better than Skype

[Anonymous Coward]

Anyone who has ever used Ekiga will never use Skype again. Ekiga is a VoIP client with video and IM capability, phone book, etc. and it has excellent sound quality. You can get the software here: http://ekiga.org/ [ekiga.org] and if you don't have a VoIP address yet you can get one here: http://ekiga.net/ [ekiga.net] or here: http://www.freeworlddialup.com/ [freeworlddialup.com]

Re:Why Skype ?

[raju1kabir]

I think you're both saying the same thing here -- since SIP is a call setup protocol and not a codec, it doesn't make sense to talk about SIP's voice quality.

I'll put it this way, then: With Skype, you are stuck using their codec, which pretty much always produces horrible results on calls to anywhere but the richest and most developed countries - particularly to cell phones. With SIP, at least you have the option to shop around and find someone who is capable of landing calls at your destination with decent quality.

For example (I have a million of these; this is just the most recent) I just receied a Skype call to my cell phone in Thailand yesterday and it was completely unintelligible, even after several retries. The person then redialed to my USA-based SIP DID which forwarded the call over SIP to a termination service, which is far cheaper than SkypeOut, and the call was crystal clear.

Re:Gak!

[Beetle B.]

Anyway, no free rides. :) @ $30 its a good deal for people who would use it,

It's a crappy deal. For almost 2 years now, I've been paying $20/mo for this and much more (VoIP as well). Equipment was provided so I could set it up with a regular phone. I've both sent calls using Skype and received from those calling me on Skype. Call quality does not warrant $30/mo - more like $10/mo. I can always tell the difference between Skype calls and landlines. Almost no one can do that for my current VoIP provider.

Re:Gak!

[GetSource]

This is $30/year, not $30/month ... so it's a bit of a better deal than it would have been otherwise. =)

I use both SIP and Skype

[Junior Samples]

I use both SIP and Skype, but overall I feel that SIP is a better solution.

Skype to Skype calls work very well, but the quality of Skype to PTSN us less than acceptable. Even though 'Skype Out' is presently free, I've usually had to pick up a real phone to complete my call because of excessive latency, dropouts, and overall poor frequency response. It's definitely worse than a bad cell phone connection - not a service that I would ever consider paying for. The other problem with Skype is that there are no low cost stand alone network adapters as there are with SIP. A computer or an expensive Skype phone is required to complete the call. Furthermore, bandwidth on your computer and network can be used to process calls for other Skype users even though you are not making a call, as long as the application is running.

I also use SIP with Free World Dialup service and Direct IP dialing. My Sipura SIP adapter has 2 connections. An ethernet cable to my router provides the network connection and a regular telephone plugs into the adapter. The system runs stand alone 24/7 without a computer. Everything works like a normal phone. NAT is minor an annoyance, but not a serious problem. I supply my real IP address to the SIP adapter and the problem is solved. I've never needed to use a STUN server. Overall, the quality has been as good or better than PTSN.