Other services
Voicemail is offered as a chargeable service: $25 per year or $8 for three months. If you’re already a SkypeIn customer voicemail is included at no extra cost.
One problem with voicemail is that when you listen to a message it is downloaded to the computer you’re using and removed from the server. This means if you use your Skype account on two different computers (one at home and one at work, or a desktop and a notebook) you can only be sure of having access to new messages.
For businesses Skype offers a “control panel” that lets an administrator allocate credits, SkypeIn numbers and voicemail to users within the company.
Conference calls can be made between participants on Skype or regular phone lines. Up to five parties can be involved, or 10 if the host is running Skype 2.0 or later on a recent Intel dual-core CPU. This restriction is reportedly a commercial decision, not a technical limitation.
Video calls are available with Skype 2.0 (currently Windows only). Naturally, you’ll need a camera—even an inexpensive webcam can give useful results—and a broadband connection.
Skype Zones are WiFi hotspots that allow the use of Skype without payment directly to the hotspot operator. For US $7.95 a month you can make unlimited calls from Skype zones or you can sign up for the “as you go” plan which costs US $2.95 per session of up to two consecutive hours at one location. As of this writing, there are some 20,000 Skype Zones worldwide—around 60 percent are in the US and the UK but more than 350 are in Australia—mainly in Azure hotspots, plus others at hotels, cafes and restaurants. Most are in capital cities but some regional centres are served. [See http://skypezones.boingo.com/search.html?pgt=results&cnty=AU]
Skype SMS is currently available only via Skype Beta 2.5 for Windows. It’s relatively cheap to use—messages to Australia cost approximately 12 cents—but you might get a better deal from your carrier. Charges for overseas destinations vary: less than eight cents to China, about nine cents to Vietnam and around 13 cents to Lebanon or the UK.
Skypecasting is a Skype 2.5-only feature. Skypecasts are conference calls that can involve up to 100 people. These numbers can be achieved because the call is hosted by Skype’s systems, not the PC of the person arranging the Skypecast. They are used for traditional teleconferencing as well as seminars and other purposes. Any registered user can run a Skypeca
Call quality
Skype can deliver very good call quality, especially for Skype-to-Skype calls. In our experience, the quality is clearly better than you’ll get from the voice support in programs such as MSN Messenger and is usually comparable to a regular phone call.
The results are more variable when using SkypeOut. When it’s good, it can be better than a normal overseas call but it can also be pretty ordinary. We occasionally experience a substantial delay that makes conversation difficult, but that sometimes happens with conventional phone calls as well.
If you tried calling Australian numbers with SkypeOut but were disappointed with the audio quality give it a second chance as things have improved, and we now consider it comparable to Freshtel and VoIP services such as MyNetFone.
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