Skype Unlimited

Wednesday, July 2nd, 2008
by William

Last week, I’ve decided to try out Skype Pro (not for any particular reason, probably just in love with the idea of VOIP). I went onto skype.com, but to my surprise, Skype Pro was discontinued. It was rebranded as Skype unlimited. Three options showed up: Unlimited US & Canada, Unlimited Mexico, and Unlimited World. I went ahead and chose the “Unlimited US & Canada” option which costs around $3 per month. If you have friends world wide and talk a lot then you might want to consider the “Unlimited World Wide” option which would run you around $10 per month. Personally I don’t see much of a point to get Unlimited Mexico because you are only limited to Mexico City, Guadalajara and Monterrey, but you may think otherwise (hola?).

After making the payment – oh, they actually give you a discount if you pay yearly -and confirming everything. I found that I had around $1.50 in my Skype account as Skype credits. Then it’s to the set-ups. I had to plug in my caller id number so when I call people, they don’t see some weird number. There are a few other features which you can check it out by yourself, but I have to mention the forwarding feature. Skype can forward calls to three of your phones, whether it is a landline or a cellphone, which means that if you are not online or away from computer, people can still reach you from their Skype client!

Now onto the rant. Making a call to another Skype user is still the same, but when you make a call to a landline or a cellphone, the voice quality deteriorates. Maybe it’s because that I am making calls to Canadian landlines and since the data has to transfer to US servers and back, it will take longer. Calls to cellphones are horrible unless you are using some sort of mic or headset. You can live with the quality but it’s just not on par with landline calls yet.

When I tried to purchase a Skype In number, I was surprised to find that Canada numbers are still not on the list since I check last year. I did some researching and found out that it was the government – the communication part of the government – that’s blocking Skype from entering the Canadian market. After some more digging around, I found that it wasn’t the case. In order to get a number in Canada, Skype has to make business contracts with phone carriers in Canada. Now why would carriers in Canada jeopardize their own business for Skype? Even if they did, the costs would be huge. Skype then would not be able to keep their inexpensive number rates then. It all didn’t make sense for Skype as a business decision so that’s why there still aren’t any Skype In numbers in Canada. Many people are hoping and waiting for Canadian number, but if you ask me when they are going to come, I’d say never unless Canadian carriers stops “robbing” people’s money with their high rates (but that’s another story).

All in all, Skype offers great rates but the quality hasn’t caught up yet so why not get it and use it as a second phone line?