Add a comment

» MEDIA (2) Skype Logo Netgear

I don\'t know how many of you use skype or a different VIOP service, but I\'ve decided that my New Years resolution is to ditch my telephone landline once and for all.

I\'ve had my own telephone line since 1981, roughly 25 years. For much of that time, cellular service was unavailable, unlimited long distance didn\'t exist, and the phone companies had you by the Huevos. For those of you that remember, there used to be one telephone company for the entire country. Then in the 70\'s, Ma Bell was broken up and things have been progressively getting better ever since.

Back to my phone line. For years and years I regularly paid between $300 and $500 per month for my phone service. At other times, I paid for 2 or 3 telephone lines. I\'ve had modem lines, fax lines, ISDN lines and T1 lines. At one point, my business had a DS3 (45MB) line into our office. But not including all the business stuff, I\'d bet my average phone costs over the last 25 years has easily been $250 per month. If you add that up, GTE (now Verizon) has taken $75,000 out of my pocket. If you add what I\'ve spent on this and previous businesses, I\'m sure I\'m approaching close to $500k. Unbelievable when you think about it.

There is no doubt that communication is the key in business today. Without communications being what they are today, we wouldn\'t have such a global economy, we would only work 40 hour weeks instead of 60 hour weeks, we\'d still have martini\'s for lunch and vacations would be 4 weeks per year instead of 2. Clearly we can blame telecommunications companies for ripping us off and for making the world a less desirable place to be.

Where was I going with this mblog...... Oh yea, Skype.

So today an email arrived noticing all us skype users that the free year of North American web to land line calling was about to come to an end. At first I didn\'t think too much about it cause I don\'t use that feature too much. But later I ran across a poll asking how many people would sign up for skypeout at $30 per year. Before even voting, I jumped over to skype to see if that was really the price. To my surprise, it was only $15 if you signed up before the end of the year. $15. Fifteen. Damn, that is cheap for a year of unlimited calling anywhere in the US. But wait, I can call Canada also for the same price. I signed up immediately. Then it occurred to me that I still couldn\'t disconnect my land line (which by the way still costs me $65 per month just to own) because no one would be able to call me. So I had to dig a little deeper. Skypein is only $35 per year (prices are given in Euro\'s and I\'ve rounded) for one phone number. So, for $50 I can have unlimited incoming and outgoing calling anywhere in North America. And I\'m only talking about calls to existing regular phones, land based or cellular. You can still call anywhere in the world to another skype user for absolutely free.

Ok, so there are a few caveats. First you need a reliable broadband connection which is still going to cost $50-75 per month. But I\'m already paying for that, so it doesn\'t cost me anything extra. Then you are going to want some new equipment so you don\'t have to sit in front of your PC to place a call. I ordered up a new Netgear Wifi Skype phone for $199 minus a $30 rebate at Newegg. The cool thing about this phone is you can take it with you anywhere in the world, and as soon as you get to a wifi hotspot, you can jump online. Damn cool.

So, I\'ll have a couple of weeks to play with my skype phone before I can call Verizon and tell them to shove it. And I\'ll take it with me on the road to my favorite Starbucks or maybe just go hang out at the American terminal at LAX, just to make free calls. The bottom line is that I love to save money, especially the kind that goes out the door on a monthly basis. While skype has been around for quite some time, I\'ve only been using it for less than 6 months. Lets face it, you can\'t beat the price.

External Link: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82...