Hopefully, all of you Skype fans out there have an extra $29.95 to spare next year, because the free trial period is coming to a close on December 31. Computer to computer calls will remain free, but reaching land-line lubbers is going to come at a cost: A yearly subscription of $29.95 or 2.1 cents per minute for calls within the U.S. and Canada.
The good news is, if you sign up before January 31, 2007, you can get a special rate of $14.95 per year, as well as 100 free minutes of international calling.
While we’re talking about Skype, version 2.5.0.63 just dropped today. Go ahead and pick it up.
Or you can go to Gizmo. I've used it for a long time and find it very adequate.
Unless I'm mistaken, Pat, you can still also pre-pay for your Skype minutes, as you used to be able to before they went free this year.
Pre-pay is a mistake. I paid those bastards roughly ten euros to make calls to land lines, and when I didn't use the account for a while, they removed the credit from my account, claiming they had emailed me several times, warning me that they would do it. Odd that I only got the email saying they'd done it. I will never give them money again, especially considering the fact that they've ignored all my subsequent customer service requests for an explanation.
Well, they did say earlier in the year the free North American calling would end in the New Year...
As for me, I'll simply pull the names from Contacts and suggest that they add Skype to their computers. To those on my list who use their cells as their primary phone because their never in one place long enough, I guess Skype has lost two customers...