Skype
June 28, 2006 by Dave Earley
Filed under Pictures
I just called my mobile phone using Skype, over my dialup connection. Why would I do that?
Because they’re offering me one hour of free calls, that’s why! So why call yourself, loser? Well, because the sound quality over broadband isn’t great to start with, so dialup isn’t likely to go great guns.
I got an email telling me if I called out to a landline using Skype, I’d automatically get an hour’s worth of free landline calls! Internet to internet using Skype is free, internet to landline is usually 10c/min or less. Anyhoo, that’s it.
I was actually mildly surprised that I was able to hear myself for about 20 seconds before Skype got wise to the dialup. Then the 5 second gap between the beginning and end of a word proved VOIP isn’t for slow connections. Speaking of slow connections, tune in to Today Tonight this evening to find out about people who can’t get broadband where they live, they’re the new internet underclass!! My emphasis, their descriptor – quality stuff. Never mind the people who can’t afford broadband, like me. But poor doesn’t make a good story, unfairly disadvantaged middle class does. Not that I’m poor compared to 95% of the world’s other inhabitants, but that wouldn’t support my argument today.
cool blog!
Well, at it’s most basic, Skype is a instant messaging service like microsoft’s, or yahoo’s that also offers free audio to other Skype users. The main difference is that you can also use it to call someone’s regular phone – landline, mobile, international, whatever. That’s not free though.
To do that you have to pre-pay, but the rates are cheap.
You usually just use regular computer mic with Skype, although it is possible to get a special handset for people who use it all the time… which is not me. To be perfectly honest, I never use Skype at all because I’m on dialup and… it wouldn’t at this stage be that useful to me anyway. I used it when I did this post because they were giving me free talk time if I made one call. Yes, free talk time I’m not likely to use…
Cool thing (not here yet) is SkypeIn. You basically pay line rental for a landline, and people can call that number from a regular phone, but you’re still getting it through VoIP. It’s only available in a few countries, but as an example, let’s say it was available here. If I had a Brisbane extension SkypeIn number, my family could make a local call to that number and my computer (or Skype handset) would ring in the US, or London, or Paris, or wherever I was connected to the internet and logged into Skype.
I don’t get Skype i really don’t. How the hell does it work? And how is it different to the other VoIPs out there? Dave, do you use a special handset or just a regular old computer mic?