Phones

This both a shameless plug and a good description of how to replace your landline service with Skype.

I hate shameless plugs, and this is sounding awfully like one, but for the past few months I’ve been using Skype. This is a nifty bit of software that allows you to talk for free to people on the internet. This is handy enough, but they also offer a service, at a cost, called SkypeOut. This gives you the ability to call normal telephones from your computer, and thus solving my landline problem. The bonus is the calls are much cheaper than you could get via a traditional phone.

Recently they’ve introduced a service called SkypeIn. This is where it gets clever. You pay your 10 euros and select a telephone number in a country of your choice. This becomes your number for three months and whenever anyone with a normal telephone dials it, they get put through to your computer (provided you are online and running Skype). The best part is that the people dialing you only pay a call to the country in which the number belongs. In my case, I have bought a UK number and so my family only pays a local UK call, even though...

I tested this out tonight with my Mum and gave her my SkypeIn number (it had a London prefix, out of interest), and asked her to call it. A few moments later and Skype starts ringing with an unknown caller (sadly caller ID doesn’t appear to work yet) and sure enough it is my Mum. We had a good chat and I explained exactly what I was doing. The connection was clear and stable, and we were both impressed.

For those times when I’m not online, and that does happen occasionally, they throw in a free Voicemail service. Messages appear in Skype the next time it is started, and you can leave your own personalized message to scare people away.

Remember that Skype and other VoIP services do not handle emergency situations (9-1-1, power outages, etc.) very well.

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