Anybody using Skype?

[ericspin]

I have noticed the word Skype in ergott's signature before and alwways wondered what it was.

I am a contractor and am in a situation where there is no landline service into the business park in which we are building. It's coming but it will be months down the road. In the mean time my cell is my sole source of communication and it is getting real expensive. Anyway several people have suggested Skype and since we have a real wealth of knowledege here I thought maybe someone could enlighten me.

Anyone? ergott?

Thanks,
Eric

[weiwentg]

Skype works pretty well, although you need to have a decent internet connection. it's been very useful to communicate with people abroad or at long distance. if your receiving party are technophobes, you can buy credit to call a landline or cellphone for around $0.02 a minute.

[Brendan Quirk]

Skype is awesome, especially if you find yourself on conference calls with any sort of frequency. Instead of having to have people piled into one room with a crappy speaker phone, people can all sit at their cpu's and talk instead. And it makes it so that you can do work while you're half-asleep on the call(!)

Keep in mind all domestic phone calls are FREE with Skype. That's awesome. The audio quality is a bit touch and go, but it's workable. [That is -- calls from Skype TO Skype are free.]

The IM functionality is perfect.

And in terms of int'l calls, the int'l calling rates are stupidly cheap, like $.02 a minute. You have to pre-purchase credits, and they expire after like 6 months, but for $10 you can talk like mad. FWIW, our foreign suppliers all use Skype. It's seemingly been widely adopted by Europe & Asia.

The big question is this: Ebay paid something like $2 billion for Skype a couple of years ago. How in the heck do they expect to see a return on that investment? Skype is more-or-less free, and there isn't an advertising element to it so there's no ad revenue.

I give it pretty much 5 stars.

[dekindy]

We have just started using Packet8 for our website business. The website is not active yet but the telephone works well. I did not look closely at Skype for pricing or know if you need any advanced capabilities other than making telephone calls. But Packet8 is highly recommended for virtual businesses by consultants.

[bigman]

Check it out - no first hand expeience but supposedly excellent and very inexspensive.

[ergott]

Skype is getting popular enough to start charging more. Otherwise, it's pretty good technology. It's best if you want to converse internationally. Otherwise I prefer the good old cell phone.

[scrooge]

is the webcam optional, or required for going computer to computer? Can one person have it, and the other not?

[saab2000]

During my research into living in Dubai, most expats find that Skype is the only reasonable way for them to make long long-distance calls. The local telephone company gouges them.

Phone rates are pretty cheap for domestic or even US-Europe calling, but I think for extended communications with Asia, Middle East, Africa, etc. it sounds like a good thing.

[e-RICHIE]

i wanna get skype so my backlog
get into the double digitsmo atmo.


ps arrange disorder

:cool: :cool: :cool:
:cool: :cool: :cool:
:p :cool: :cool:

[Spinner]

...exposes your computer system to infestation and malware. As the tech geeks at my company explain it, you are leaving the door open to external threats galore when using Skype. Just sayin.

[chuckred]

You can also hook up a video camera so you can see and talk at the same time. It worked, but isn't simple enough for the type of quick calls you may need while doing construction.

[dvs cycles]

I have noticed the word Skype in ergott's signature before and alwways wondered what it was.

I am a contractor and am in a situation where there is no landline service into the business park in which we are building. It's coming but it will be months down the road. In the mean time my cell is my sole source of communication and it is getting real expensive. Anyway several people have suggested Skype and since we have a real wealth of knowledege here I thought maybe someone could enlighten me.

Anyone? ergott?

Thanks,
EricOnly experience I've had was recently. Someone stole one of our creditcard numbers and racked up $900+ in charges with 4 of those being to SKYPE and 1 to some jewelry site.
We have NEVER used skype or desired to but his person spent over $200.

[ada@prorider.or]

i use skype a lot
specialy over the world and for explanation to others firms and persons

as well family over the world and travels to contact home

imagine on the top of the world ,calling my doughter
charge free a let her see the nordkapp over skype video
for us its awesome in the way we use it in europe
almost evrywhere free internet wifi connections
cees

[thwart]

We Skype a lot; recently having had kids in Italy and Argentina. Almost always impressive and frequently significantly better audio than cell or landline.

[MRB]

Skype is really good for the hearing impaired. My dad used a headset & Mic setup to talk with my brother long distance. My dad could really hear well and participate in the conversation, which he had not been able to do very well prior to Skype.

[Karin Kirk]

Another tip is to get a headset, which makes the sound quality much, much better. The headset has to have input and output (two separate plugs) so a regular phone one won't work.

[rsl]

I've used skype to speak with friends in different parts of the country, and I love the skype-to-skype rate (which is free). Getting a headset or external mic might be useful. And I have to say the webcam function is a lot of fun.

I've used it to call all over the place too - South Africa, Ethiopia, Jamaica, Scotland, Singapore, all without problems. Anecdotally, I've found it to be much more reliable than any cell phone carrier I've ever had, though this is partly a function of a good internet connection.

[bigtime]

Skype is effing brilliant. Love it.

Until Skype I lived only with my cell phone (no land line)-- which is still my go to device. I tried Skype cause cell phone doesnt cut it quality-wise all the time; as other posters have mentioned it is awesome for convo's with multiple people, int'l calls, etc. It, or something like it, is the next generation of calling.

The only downside is it requires you to submit to still more slavery to Comcast (or whatever hi speed internet provider you have and they all suck atmo.) Ya wins some, ya lose some.

[thwart]

A new use for Skype... for me anyway. We're traveling in Argentina, and my daughter wants to contact a friend who happens to be in the same town to check on a time to meet at the local disco. She left her cell at home in Buenos Aires, so she calls him with the laptop my wife brought along (PhD students are never on vacation) with us, dialing him up at his hostel using the Skype dial-pad. $0.02 a minute...

Amazing.