Comments on: Farewell SkypeOut

Question: Farewell SkypeOut

Sufi — Wed, 13 Dec 2006 13:15:01 -0800

Now that Skype is cutting off it's free service, what free alternatives are available?

By: winston

winston — Wed, 13 Dec 2006 13:33:13 -0800

You can still call other Skype users for free. It was calling regular telephone numbers (in USA and Canada) that was a limited-time thing.

Are you looking for a phone service that will give you free long distance indefinitely?

By: Sufi

Sufi — Wed, 13 Dec 2006 13:45:48 -0800

Winston I would need computer to landline long distance calling inside the US.

By: winston

winston — Wed, 13 Dec 2006 13:48:39 -0800

As far as I know, Skype is still the best deal.

By: hominid211

hominid211 — Wed, 13 Dec 2006 14:11:15 -0800

Yeah, isn't the plan $15 if bought before the end of January? I'll be purchasing that and a SkypeIn number to replace my cell phone of evil.

By: boaz

boaz — Wed, 13 Dec 2006 14:19:01 -0800

There's Jajah but it works a little differently. It's a phone-to-phone service with a computer intermediary. You might like it. I gotta say that Skype's offer of $15 for a year of free phone calls sounds eminently reasonable.

By: Smart Dalek

Smart Dalek — Wed, 13 Dec 2006 14:22:53 -0800

It seems Vonage has several issues.

By: nazca

nazca — Wed, 13 Dec 2006 14:26:16 -0800

that sucks. I didn't realize they were cutting it off.

I just checked the gizmo project. I thought they had a similar deal before, but I might be wrong. Now they're offering free calls to any mobile or landline that is registered with another gizmo user.

By: boaz

boaz — Wed, 13 Dec 2006 14:28:20 -0800

Eh, I just realized that Jajah's charging for calls to non-Jajah users now. Meh. There's also Gizmo, which charges a penny a minute to USA numbers. If you're a low-volume caller, that might be a better deal.

By: -t

-t — Wed, 13 Dec 2006 14:31:00 -0800

If you're willing to jump through some hoops or pay a bit, check out Gizmo.

After about a year of using Skype and Gizmo on a daily basis, I've had far fewer issues with Gizmo (including better audio quality). FYI: This on a G5 running OS X 10.4 with a cable connection, YMMV.

By: mathowie

mathowie — Wed, 13 Dec 2006 14:44:32 -0800

What was previously free is now $15 for an unlimited year. I would guess you'll spend more than $15 of your time looking for any free alternative.

By: champthom

champthom — Wed, 13 Dec 2006 15:41:00 -0800

May I remind everyone that before Skype was free for the US and Canada, it was about $0.01 a minute that you had to buy in $20 increments or so. Strangely, just as I ran out of airtime, they went to the free thing.

$15 for a whole year is a sweet deal. I need to get a new microphone then because that's a pretty sweet deal, as my cell phone is costing me waaaaay too much.

Anyways, to answer the question though: Skype is still probably your best bet, even though it costs a little bit of money now. I used Skype when it was the penny a minute or so and it was definately worth it.

By: toucano

toucano — Wed, 13 Dec 2006 19:45:52 -0800

Skype is owned by Ebay. And if you know anything about how Ebay operates, you ought not be surprised if the rule of the game change when it is least expected. My personal take (and also that of many stock analysts) is that Ebay paid far, far too much for Skype. If true, Ebay will look to users to dig them out. Ask any serious Ebay seller how Ebay is treating them. I personally will go with Gizmo. JMHO.

By: spaceman_spiff

spaceman_spiff — Wed, 13 Dec 2006 21:01:33 -0800

-t: I used Gizmo for a long time - I definitely prefer the user interface. But, on a Powerbook G4 with more bandwidth than you can shake a stick at, Skype gave me better sound (or rather, gave the person I was calling better sound more consistently).

I might go back and try Gizmo again when the free period is up, though. And it's definitely my reserve option for when Ebay realizes, as toucano said, that they paid too much.

By: wierdo

wierdo — Thu, 14 Dec 2006 00:06:21 -0800

The lowest price I'm aware of for US long distance is about half a cent a minute (VoicePulse Connect), and that's only good to some destinations, others are about a cent a minute, so it sounds like Skype may still be the best deal out there. The cheapest flat rate I know if is 1.1c/min, but I haven't looked in a while.

I'm just wondering how they can afford to pay settlement for $15 a year unlimited. I guess they expect you to call cheap destinations and spend less than 600 minutes a month on the phone.

By: Mitheral

Mitheral — Thu, 14 Dec 2006 10:13:07 -0800

wierdo writes "spend less than 600 minutes a month on the phone"

A pretty good bet probably. The LD companies around here were offering "unlimited" long distance plans a few years ago where unlimited meant 400-600 minutes a month. And once you get used to using your computer to make calls you might start using them for toll calls.

By: phearlez

phearlez — Thu, 14 Dec 2006 13:04:37 -0800

And if you know anything about how Ebay operates, you ought not be surprised if the rule of the game change when it is least expected.

I am perplexed that anyone finds this to be unexpected when their materials have all said "free through the end of the year" since the day they started this promotion. This has been a limited time offer from the first moment they started it.

If you use 1 minutes a day that's 365 minutes in a year. Divide $14.95 by that and you get 4.1 cents a minute. 5 minutes a day and you're under a penny a minute.

I'm with #1. How much cheaper could you possibly manage?

By: D Wiz

D Wiz — Tue, 19 Dec 2006 01:38:11 -0800

I haven't tried either of these yet but the only free alternatives I can find are icall and voipbuster.
Voipbuster is only free to landlines but costs $0.01 per minute to cell phones. The call quality is supposed to be better than skype. Icall is free to both but from what I have heard the quality is not great. So choose your poison... As there is nothing else free that I can dig up.