Skype says it hopes the move will increase “penetration in North America.” That Skype is free to download and free to use has already helped the service achieve the milestone of more than 100 million users. The latest move by the company is an attempt to drive that number up even more.
Earlier this month, Vonage enhanced its VoIP subscription service to include free international calls to France, Italy, Ireland, Spain, and the United Kingdom for those users with unlimited plans. Skype may have felt some pressure to entice users to its service even more. Free calls may indeed be one way to do that for users who don't mind making phone calls using a PC.
Read more from the Skype press release.
USER COMMENTS 13 comment(s)
|Calls using PC (11:18am EST Wed May 17 2006)
Just so people know, you can buy phone systems that allow you to use Skype without having to sit at your PC. They cost about the same as regular telephones and ussually plug into the USB port on your computer but have one or more cordless handsets and often multiple bases to allow for communication away from the PC. bestbuy.com has a couple available designed specifically for Skype. - by Hanspiel
|o u suck (11:20am EST Wed May 17 2006)
o u suck - by o u suck
|Skype on ur PDA (11:22am EST Wed May 17 2006)
my friend told me about this deal yesterday, he was using the skype on his azim this morning, so it's sort of like a FREE cell phone service if you have a PDA w/Bluetooth and wifi and windows mobile 5 - by NNL
|geek.com is too slow. The announcement was made on Monday, May 15. (12:57pm EST Wed May 17 2006)
Check the press release. Even news.com announced it on Monday. Geek.com is late by two days.
Also with skypeout you need to this number to phone in the us or canada
+1 415 555 1234. You need the extra + to make long distance call. - by
|PDA (12:59pm EST Wed May 17 2006)
I have a HP 4155 IPAq and works very good with Skype. the quality of the call its not as clear as from a PC because the MIC of my PDA is not that good. If someone knows of a headset for HP PDA's that would help. Thanks - by Guinness
|hmm (1:11pm EST Wed May 17 2006)
are we moving into the ear of free domestic long distance calls in the US? - by AT&T Stockholder
|Re: hmm (3:06pm EST Wed May 17 2006)
I think this will take the wind out of the sails of Vontage upcoming IPO. They are spending a lot of money on marketing and still are not making money because their Voip services are relatively cheap. (Take a look to the right). They will get more money from the IPO and spend it on more marketing. - by
|Happy Freeday to all (3:18pm EST Wed May 17 2006)
I forget what novel it was, either Gibson or Sterling, but a brief mention is made of the day that planetwide voice communications became FREE. We're almost there, so if you own Telco stock… perhaps it's time to think of other options… - by screamlab
|P2P not VOIP (4:20pm EST Wed May 17 2006)
Keep in mind that Skype is P2P not VOIP. Not that big of a deal, but if you have limitations on your internet connection this can cause issues. - by XH
|re:HX (5:51pm EST Wed May 17 2006)
how does the voice get to the peer i believe VOIP…p2p and voip are 2 different things, cant compare them. - by voip guy
|Re: XH (from China?) is retarded (8:39pm EST Wed May 17 2006)
P2P is peer to peer
VOIP is voice over IP
Not all VOIP is done by P2P. - by XH Retard
|Re: XH Retard (9:35pm EST Wed May 17 2006)
And who is the retard now.
Peer-to-peer (“P2P”) technology was first widely deployed and popularized by file-sharing applications such as Napster and KaZaA. In this context, P2P technology allows users to share, search for and download files. The P2P term has been widely used and just as often abused. Companies both large and small, self-proclaimed “pundits” and others to trying to cash in on the “P2P buzz” use this term as long as it involves some direct communication between users or nodes. This description of P2P completely misses the point.
A true P2P system, in our opinion, is one where all nodes in a network join together dynamically to participate in traffic routing-, processing- and bandwidth intensive tasks that would otherwise be handled by central servers.
A true P2P application empowers small teams with good ideas to develop software and businesses that can successfully challenge those of large companies. True P2P, when applied to ripe markets, is disruptive technology.
Decentralized P2P networks have several advantages over traditional client-server networks. These networks scale indefinitely without increasing search time and without the need for costly centralized resources. They utilize the processing and networking power of the end-users machines since these resources always grow in direct proportion to the network itself. Each new node added to the network adds potential processing power and bandwidth to the network. Thus, by decentralizing resources, second generation (2G) P2P networks have been able to virtually eliminate costs associated with a large centralized infrastructure.
P2P telephony became a natural next step where P2P could have a significant disruptive impact and Skype was founded to develop the first P2P telephony network.
What no apologies? - by XH
|P2P telephony (3:22pm EST Fri May 19 2006)
I am not sure this term is truely correct.
I so MSN Messenger, AIM, Yahoo, Google talk…are all P2P? All the same functions except for landline calling.
Skype uses the P2P type network, but it is a VOIP…it at some point allows people to jump onto the phone grid and call landlines hence the reason it is a VOIP. This is NOT P2P this is VOIP with a P2P network vision.
P2P is nothing that special and it is used commonly everywhere even before the great filesharing programs. But it was never coined the coining of P2P is in file sharing and in either striaght Peer to Peer, Decentralized P2P networks.
Using P2P to discribe collabrative work between people is just companies trying to jump on the band wagon. Applications should more coin some form of the word Dispersed Collaberative Environment since that is what it is…
XH you need to just except that Skype is a VoIP because that is what it delivers and in know way is different from say MSN or AIM in any of its other functions other then the ability to send calls to the phone grid. - by asdfasdfasd