Skype

Skype is a really great tool for programming and business. The other day I made a call to Canada and had a chat with the Beyond Virtual Team. Then I called IPete in England and we got into a long discussion about some different ideas. You can talk with anyone in the world who has Skype for free, and call any phone number worldwide for about $0.001 per minute. I really recommend it.

The only downside is they have no customer service at all. If you have a problem, the only thing you can do is dispute the charge on your credit card, because they won't ever reply to you.

It also sits in your systray consuming 30+MB of RAM when idle.

But other than that, the sound quality is superb and I never experienced lag with it ;)

I'd rather we ditched telephones as they were intended and use them completely for Internet access, switching voice communication entirely to peer->pear VOIP thus rendering long distance fees impossible to calculate.

For now, Skype sounds pretty nice :)

This reminds me that I've been meaning to ask whether anyone here knows anything about this?

http://www.jajah.com/

It appears that this site somehow lets you make free or low-priced calls over the internet but using your normal phone and without downloading software a la Skype. The way its supposed to work is that you enter the two numbers that you want to connect into a form on the website, click on 'call', your phone rings, you pick it up, and from there its just like an ordinary landline call. Except free or very cheap.

It sounds great but does it work as advertised? Is there a catch? And can it be trusted? What do you think?

Skype rocks, been using it for a while now. Think Tim Fisher recommended it to me + a friend in Denmark. You do get some weird lag problems when the other person does something CPU intensive. As fot the systry thing, I don't have skype load on boot up I just load it when I feel like being "available" which is what I wish phones worked like :-)

I thought about Skype and the others - but I have nobody to phone I only use my telephone line for the computer - can't remember the last time I made a phone call.

I have never used skype, but i think im going to give it a go - could be really useful and save on the regular phone bill too.



http://www.arteria-gaming.com

I have Skype and didn't know this, can you call China and Japan from the UK at this cheap price?

I love Skype. Really nice tool to "meet" people abroad.

I'm not sure whether you're asking about Skype or Jajah, but if its the latter then the rates are listed here:

http://www.jajah.com/info/rates/

It looks to me like you should be able to call China and Japan for free. I don't have direct experience with this thing though so try it at your own risk.

if someone is on SKype you can call them free (via Skype to Skype) anywhere in the world, but Skype to Phone costs money and the rates must be on the website somewhere.

Enay,
I think that Skype is blocked in China, but I'm 100% sure.

I'm pretty sure some chinese hackers have developed a Hide-skype-from-ISP application. If i'm correct then Skype is developed by the inventors of original peer to peer program called Kazaa :)

There can be up to 4 people in skype to skype conversation.

That's neat, but I wouldn't feel comfortable with any Chinese friends of mine using dodgy methods to circumvent the great firewall of China. It's not worth the risk in a country who's rulers tend to over-emphasis the "punish" in punishment.

Grey Alien:
Its called Skypeout and its very cheap.
I have it, use it to call a pal of mine in Australia.

I've Skype out/in and have been using it for about 2 years. All calls and text conversations happen on Skype and the best thing is that people just my telephone number and they connect to me where ever I am in the world.

It's also possible to make unlimited free calls via skype. I'm not going to give you all the details but you call a +800 number in the states and it forwards you to any international number free of charge.

Skype is a little bit memory hungry but we use it a lot too for both free and landline calls. The only thing I'm not happy with is the video capabilities require 512mb of ram which is silly.

I'm downloading it to test,

few questions,
Do you talk through your speakers and microphone or with your phone?
I have been speaking through internet since the NetMeeting was available from within Windows,
and if you turn-on the microphone option in the MSN messenger you can
also talk as much as you want ... so, ... Is it basically the same stuff ???

Paolo.

Skype - to - Skype is free just for those who didn't read the whole thread.

You talk through your microphone on your pc (or a mic/headset combination) and you listen through whatever is connected to your audio card output (i.e. speakers or headset).

Yes this bit is like MSN it is FREE.

You can even call landlines but this requires a low payment. This is how ALL telecomms wil go in the future. You will probably only pay for where the comms come out of the Internet and use the local phone lines/exchanges.

You can set up an account and pay in some money (i.e. get credits to use). Then you pay as you go.

I have been using it to speak with a load of clients and friends alike. It makes the virtual office a fabulous place to be. My clients can Skype me whilst they are on the phone to their clients to get answers to key questions.

It was cool to speak to Josh the other night - we have spent the best part of 9 years communicating via, MSN, etc. without ever speaking to each other directly, now we are both just a Skype away!


IPete2.

Skype sdaved me when DSL was installed and the AT&T mucked up the phone lines... (still had the cable modem at that point...) So I called SW Bell/AT&T and complained...

I turn off Skype unless I am using it... like AIM... It is a setting... I use it to talk for free to Canada and USA... My wife might use it to talk to China but the rate is more than 0.01 cents per minute... It is a good thing though... if used wisely!

But SKYPE and VOIP protocall is one reason the big boys want to CHARGE for premium Infobahn speeds... They figure they are loosing out... In other words "The MORONS with an MBA want money and have figured out a new way to BLEED the public!"

You might also want to check out Gizmo http://www.gizmoproject.com/ it's like Skype, but actually uses an open VOIP standard. Yeah for open standards!

MSN only supports VOIP on Windows as far as I know, the Mac version is lagging behind...and I don't even know if there is a Linux one. Skype on Mac has also been lagging behind and video support on Mac only arrived recently in their Mac beta version.

Ragnar

Well I finally got around to testing this and I must say I am very well impressed!

I called a friend in Japan from the UK for 64 minutes and it only cost me 73 pence! Fantastic! It's like you're calling for 70p an hour instead of 70p a minute which is the usual. How can it be so cheap?

I mean the last time I was in Japan calls cost me about 50~60p a minute, about 100 yen per minute and that was actually 2 people INSIDE of the country. This time I got 3 yen per minute Skype, it's simply incredible. And PC to PC is free anywhere in the world. Awesome, I'm only gutted I didn't find this technology sooner.

I am now well and truly Skype converted. Cheers Josh.

Indiepath, Please share!

Why wouldn't you give out the details? Is it illegal?