Really cheap international calls

[cdybedahl]

Lured by the promise of a cheap way of calling Scotland, I ignored my misgivings and tried Skype. Which I have now used to talk to sassia for an hour. This, since I called her normal landline phone, cost me all of 70 UK pence. Or 10 Swedish kronor, if you prefer. That's about one sixth of what it'd cost using my landline phone, and on top of that the sound quality was significantly better.

*looks at the phone company's price list*

Um, in the daytime local calls are cheaper via Skype than via the landline phone!

sassia's going to try to get a headset connected to her computer, since that would mean that we can talk for free (well, except for Internet connection costs, but we pay for that anyway).

If someone here is strangely curious about what my voice sounds like, my Skype userid is the same as my LJ one.

Comments

[gonzo21.livejournal.com]

Do you need broadband to use Skype?

[cdybedahl.livejournal.com]

No, just a net connection of some kind. Their technical FAQ seems to indicate that it's probably not worth using it if you have less than about 25 kbit/s effective speed, because the sound quality goes down as it gets less bandwidth to play with. And of course, if you're on dialup nobody can call you using Skype unless you happen to be connected when they try.

Actually, only 25 kbit/s per call is pretty good. Trusty old ISDN used 64 kbit/s for a single voice channel.

[gonzo21.livejournal.com]

So you can only talk to other skype users with it? And presumably you need some sort of head-set/microphone assembly?

[cdybedahl.livejournal.com]

No, but if you do talk to someone else using Skype it's free. It's only when you call out into the normal phone network it costs money.

You need some kind of headphones and obviously a microphone (speakers and mic won't work because of feedback issues, they say). A headset is strongly recommended, but that's not much of a problem. The cheapest ones on Amazon are 7 UK pounds, but I've seen ones in the shops here for about 3.