Thoughts and Riches

.....a blog about personal finance, motivational stories, deals, and special offers

Books

Web Domain Registration

Thursday, September 13, 2007

Getting phone service extension from Skype

We use Skype for our local and long distance within North America. Last month, Skype had some problems with their service and like many other customers, we also couldn't log in to my account to make any calls for some time. A few days ago, I received the email from Skype, informing us about the problems with their service and as a nice gesture, they extended our subscription by a week.

We use Skype extensively for making calls to our friends locally as well as through out North America. Before we joined the service, we were not sure about the quality of call since they are made over the internet. So far, however, the service, including call quality, has been very good, barring a couple of occassions where we did encounter some static. Fortunately, such occurrences have been rare and so far, we have been pleased with its call quality.

Earlier, we used to use prepaid phone calls for long distance calls. Now, we just use Skype as we signed up for the SkypeOut (Skype's Unlimited plan) earlier this year. The plan allows us to make unlimited calls within the US and Canada for a flat rate of $29.95 for the entire year. Fortunately, there are no additional maintenance, dormancy or connection fees etc, and the plan allows us to call people in the US or Canada on their cell or landline phone. This was good since most of our friends use cell or landline phones. Since the plan has no time limited, we use the service frequently to just chat up with our friends even if it just for few minutes, and we do that both from home and work. The good part was that on the Mothers' Day this year, Skype offered free calls to anywhere in the world which was great since it allowed us to get in touch with our friends and families on the other side of the globe.

Skype also allows free PC-to-PC worldwide calls when calling other Skype users but for us and our friends, that's a bit limiting since with young kids (an infant and a two-year old in my case) around, we call each other when ever we have some free time. If we have to use the Skype PC-to-PC calling feature, we would have to schedule time when both of us could be on the computer to talk to each other. May be once the kids have grown up a bit, I might consider the use of that feature but for now, calling others on their landline or mobile phone when ever we have some free time is what works for us. I also heard that you can IM and also make free video calls, although I have never used that feature.

Skype's other calling plans:

SkypeIn – Based on what I read on the Skype's site, this plan allows you to buy a personal phone number on which your friends/customers etc can contact you from their regular phone. So, for example, if your customers or friends happen to be in England, while your business is in New York, you can get a personal number in England, so that when your friends or customers call you, it's local call for them while you can be in New York or anywhere in the US and still be able to receive it. The SkypeIn number along with a and free Skype Voicemail costs $18 for 3 months or $60 for a full year (there are no additional per minute charges).

Skype Voicemail - Skype allows you to buy voicemail by itself. It's useful in case someone's trying to contact you but you are busy or offline or busy, or you want to send record messages to anyone. Surprisingly, the company has listed the price in Euros for this service. It's currently € 5 for 3 months or € 15 for the year, but is free with SkypeIn.

Skype for Business - designed for businesses

If you are new to Skype, Skype is currently offering your first call for free after downloading Skype - up to 10 minutes to any phone, anywhere in the world. The free minutes expire in 30 days. For details, see:

Download Skype and up to 10 minutes of free call anywhere in the world (Info about free call is provided towards the bottom of the page)

posted by Ruby @ 1:02 AM

0 Comments:

Post a Comment

<< Home

See important Disclosure and Disclaimer

Favorite Quote

"If you look at what you have in life, you will always have more. If you look at what you do not have in life, you will never have enough".
- Author Unknown

Disclosure

This site uses cookies from companies like Google and others to enable the companies to deliver their services, personalize their ads and product offerings, and for traffic analysis. Information about your use of this site is shared with these companies. By using this site, you agree to its use of cookies. Additionally, this site, including blog posts, may contain reviews, links, banners, text and other forms of advertisements for products, services, courses, and so forth of companies of which we may be an affiliate member or for which we may get paid for referrals. This site may also contain blog posts for which we are paid, as well as blog posts regarding products or services of companies from which we may have received complimentary products or services.

Reward Surveys/Panels/Shopping/Contests