Who's familiar with skype?

[Mozgus]

I'm considering using it as an alternative to my cell phone, for when I'm at home on the PC, and want to talk longer and pay less than I'm used to. I'd be using it for skype-to-phone, and phone-to-skype calls and nothing else.

Problem is, I can't really figure out their pricing structure on their site. One page lists this unlimited monthly call plan that's super cheap, while another page mentions per-minute fees, as if they're tacked on or something.

Other than that, how reliable is it? Do you think it's worth getting involved with?

[marurun]

I have only used it Skype-to-Skype with a friend overseas, so I can't add much. I do know that I also found it difficult, when investigating on a lark, to find fees and fee schedules.

[molotovwars]

A friend of mine uses it and I think he was paying around $7 a month, which included Skype-In (which gave him a phone number that other people could call him with, as well as redirecting to his cell if he didn't answer) and Skype-Out which let him use skype to call phone numbers within the United States. I know Skype-In and Skype Out are priced differently and that he purchased both, however I am not sure if it was any sort of promotional pricing. It worked well for him, especially since there was poor cell reception at the place he was living at the time. Right now his status on skype is "Offline with call forwarding" so if I tried to call his skype number it would just go to his actual cell.

[Mozgus]

Well I went for it. Got unlimited calls to ground lines and cells, and setup my own skype phone number, and forwarding to my cell if I dont answer on the PC. I'm a little worried with the phrasing on here. It said something like forwarding to ground lines is free, while to anything else will use their standard rates. I hope that forwarding to my cell is included in the unlimited plan. Even if forwarding proves be to pricey, I can just rely on the skype voice mail which should be free.

Anyways, all that combined, its about $19 every 3 months, but if I pay by the year, it would be $42 I think. If these 3 months work well, I'll go annual. Pretty cool stuff. Very little lag, and good quality from what I can tell.

[racketboy]

Keep us posted -- I've considered signing up as well as we're cell-only right now (with 500 mins a month)

[Mozgus]

Hah, another cool feature. There's an option to ring your internal PC speaker as well. I'm not sure if retail PCs come with these anymore, but I put one in mine long ago just to diagnose bios error codes. This is pretty handy for when my stereo receiver is set to my game consoles instead of PC. It just lowers the likelihood that I might miss a call.

[holaback]

Sounds like ur not leaving kansas any time sooon

[Mozgus]

Sounds like ur not leaving kansas any time sooon

Why would I? That that confirmed that everywhere sucks.

[Ivo]

I tried Skype, but instead I use another VoIP client regularly to make calls to landlines - but I'm not sure how good it is for the U.S.
I don't receive calls through VoIP, just make them, and I don't use VoIP "phones", I use the PC always. Skype is probably either more feature rich or easier to configure etc. than these "cheaper alternatives".

Skype is certainly reliable and trustworthy (which the ones I'm about to recommend may not be), but I've been using this other ones for some years already without problems, and their rates are cheaper if you use it frequently.

The pricing scheme these programs use is you charge them for some money (10 Euros, at least for me - probably similar value in USDs) and you get 120 days of free calls to landlines in a list of countries (and IIRC, also U.S. mobiles). Your balance is only deducted when:
a) You call a LOT
b) When the 120 free days are over
c) You call landlines (or mobiles) not in the list of free destinations
And even then, the rates that you pay are cheaper than Skype's rates per minute. I personally don't think a) is unreasonable, as from my personal experience this only happened about twice in years of using them (it seems that it is a weekly limit of 300 minutes, so the next week you're back on not being charged unless you again call over the limit again. I use the service freely and only ran into the limit a handful of times).
Even if actually spend those 10 Euros every 4 months (I'd think you'd be able to at least manage a whole month while spending from the balance, but who knows how much you call) it's still about the same as Skype's annual plan, and you can call other non-US countries.

There are allegedly some reports of problems with the company - I never had problems myself otherwise I wouldn't be here advertising for them. In any case, the wikipedia article has links about this
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voipstunt
I never pay with actual credit cards (I use a virtual credit card which only works for one transaction with a limit I place when creating the virtual card). I would advise caution, as in all things you should exercise a lot of care with your money and credit card.

There are a number of different software clients all using the same pricing scheme, but with different lists of free countries. Either all or the majority of them include the U.S. though so you shouldn't have trouble there. The one I've used the most is VoIPStunt (and continue to use currently) - I've used VoIPBuster and VoIPWise as well (it's all the same) due to wanting some different countries in the "free" list, but as the different clients don't share contacts I decided to stick with the same and in the rare instances I'm calling a different country I'll just have it deduct from my balance (the rates are very good anyway). If in doubt, go with VoIPStunt as that's the one I've been using most and haven't really had problems with calling quality.

That has the list of free countries:
http://www.voipstunt.com/en/index.html

Rates when you're out of free days, or for non-free countries:
http://www.voipstunt.com/en/calling-rates.html

Somewhere on their site you can also make a free trial call to check how the quality is for you.

If you are interested and have questions about these, just ask.

Ivo.