10.10: Skype

Sort of..

you cannot call land-lines for free, however, you can call other people who use the skype program. It will pop up a message on their computer, and play a ring tone. Once activated, you can talk to the other person. This is quite good for international calls, or if you want to call someone who is on or near their computer a lot (e.g. office workers).

However, to call a land line, you have to pay for skype's "skype-out" service, or use a SIP provider who can do this for you.

Effectively what they do is run a computer in different areas, which then patches the internet call into a regular phone network.

Note that the call quality over IP networks is somewhat degraded as compared to that of a normal phone-line, which ensures dedicated bandwidth per call. However, the quality is normally enough for phone-calls

skype seems to be more popular in europe than the rest of the world

Thans, mycae.