VoIP Now: Skype: The Price is Right?

January 25, 2007

Skype: The Price is Right?

At the end of the month, the SkypeOut rates for Canada and the US are going up to US$29.95. That's not a monthly rate; it's for unlimited calling for a full year. The current promo rate is US$14.95 for the full year - less than $2/m. I'm probably going to take advantage of the special rate on the last day of January.

I don't typically make a lot of long distance calls anymore, now that I work out of the house, and since I use text chat or email for the most part. However, I'm moving back to the big city, Toronto, Canada, sometime this summer or early fall, to be able to make it to various tech conferences and possibly do some teaching.

That means that if I want to stay in touch with my parents, it'll be a lot of long distance (two different places). And that'll be from my cell phone, since I haven't had a land line in around 10 years and don't plan to. That'll add up, even for the occasional call every month. Skype's price looks more appealing now (though they still don't have SkypeIn numbers for Toronto while Gizmo does).

Even at the doubled price after Jan 31st, it could still be worth it. Skype Journal's Phil Wolff puts the Pro Skype pricing in perspective: 4.3 SkypeOut minutes per day pays back the Pro calling plan, when compared to the new per minute rates - which are higher than they were last year, with no promise of quality. (He even offers a spreadsheet if you want to see the calculations.)

And that's my main beef. The quality of my Skype calls weren't great in December. What's more, since my mother doesn't have a computer and my father doesn't want to use VoIP, for them to call me is going to be costly for them. One the one hand, it's a piddly sum for a full year of unlimited calls. On the other, both parents have complained to me of the quality of my Skype calls to them, even though we all live in the same town. The other problem, as mentioned above, is that SkypeIn doesn't support Toronto yet. It'll be expensive for my parents to call me (my brother just emails me).

That means I need some other option, possibly SkyNET-tel's 1-800 number and a Toronto VoIP number for inbound calling. Why can't there be a single computer-based VoIP solution for a city as large as Toronto (as large as Atlanta, Georgia, if I'm not mistaken). No doubt people in other cities are wondering the same thing. So is the price right or isn't it? I'm undecided.

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January 25, 2007 in Business, Residential, Skype, Software | Permalink