No Skype – it’s for real

More for my international readers – friends and family – but for the rest of you as well. Check out Skype. It’s from the people who brought out Kazaa and it’s an amazing application. But only if you have a broadband internet connection and only because they just added the ability to call any phone number in the world (or most of them anyway). What it is is a service that provides a P2P VoIP telephone connection (or in other words, make telephone calls from you PC with a headset or speakers and mic). It’s free if you call another Skype user but more importantly it is 0.017 euros per minute if you call most Western European countries and the US – from any to any. I think you have to pay tax if you live in Europe so it might go up to about 0.02 euros per minute. That means call a friend in Germany from the US for the equivalent of about 2 cents a minute. You have to buy time in chunks. I tried it by calling my house from my laptop – using a WiFi connection no less – and it worked great. Occasional slight delays but overall very good quality. So Mum, I’ll be calling from the computer from now on!