SkypeOut For Free
Posted on May 17, 2006
About 3 1/2 years ago, Mary and I cut the cord to our home phone and became totally dependent on our cell phones. We were paying for 2 cell phones anyway and didn’t really use our home phone. Then, 2 years ago, we moved into our current house in a new town and broke down and got a home phone. (still paying for 2 cell phones) This nonsense went on for a little over a year until our home phone bill more than doubled. Simultaneously, our only phone attached to our landline was a cordless one, with 2 handsets, which gradually lost the ability to charge, to the point of having no way to talk on our home phone. That was late last year and it concerned us very little. We would get voice mails and call back from our cell phone, plus anyone who we really wanted to talk to, (i.e. friends) had our cell phone numbers.
Along about February, we cut the cord once again and life is once again good. Life is easier, for our family, at least, without a home phone, however, being seasoned cord cutters, we realized lately that we appreciated having an alternate number to give out, like on websites or whatever.
So we looked into Skype and actually signed up for SkypeIn. At the time, it was $29.95 per year to get an incoming phone number. Sweet deal, we jumped on that one! So, we have had our Skype number for a couple of months now. (By the way, now SkypeIn is $38.95 per year, still a great deal.)
Now, Skype just announced that SkypeOut is free, at least thru the end of this year for U.S. and Canada callers to the U.S. and Canada. If you don’t know what Skype is, it is a VoIP service that allows you to make phone calls across the internet.
This means that with a simple microphone and speakers on your computer, you can call any phone, basically in North America, for free. Take it up a notch, get a headset with a mic attached, although you are tied pretty tight to your PC. Another notch, USB Bluetooth adapter and Bluetooth earpiece and you are free to roam around the room, maybe even a little farther. Many new laptops come Bluetooth enabled, so that’s something to pay attention to, if you are looking.
Maybe you are not ready to cut the cord, that’s ok, it’s a big step, but at least go to Skype and signup for a free SkypeOut account and check it out.
Sometime soon, maybe in the next post, I’ll share something cool that I’ve already done with Skype, so don’t touch that dial!
UPDATE: My Skype name is realtechmatters, skype me!
Popularity: 8% [?]
Other posts by Jim Walton
»
