Skype is announcing that calls from Skype to a landline or mobile phone in the U.S. or Canada are now free, through the end of the year.
The Skype user must be in the U.S. or Canada at the time of the call (it doesn’t matter where your Skype account is set up), and the outbound call must be to a U.S. or Canadian POTS or mobile phone. Skype calls to U.S. numbers are currently priced at $0.02 per minute.
There are lots of other ways to make free calls in the U.S., but none that have no set monthly fee (Vonage has plans at $15/$25 per month, for example). This won’t help people overseas who are using Skype calling into the U.S., but it’s great to see calling fees disappear, one step at a time.
How I wish I lived in North America. These guys makes Asia worse than it already is.
wow wow wow! This is a massive slap in the face to the establishment. I say bravo!
It is a very significant move for Skype: at their recent analyst day Ebay/Skype gave the info that SkypeOout was generating over 90% of Skype revenue!
If it is the 1st to a fully free SkypeOut, how are they going to generate money?
The info about the 90% through SkypeOut is in this pdf at page 254 (!!) : http://investor...ystDay_2006.pdf
If you want to read my thoughts in FR (use Google translate when needed), check http://media-te...sation-les.html
Awesome, simply awesome.
awesome news
i wonder how big the reaction will be and if skypes DC can handle it..
What happens next year?
Exactly, what I want to know. This whole thing sounds like a promotion scheme…
i can’t stand the new color scheme, but i’m back. i’m enduring. i might have to go back to using a feed reader, but i will not be denied my web 2.0 propaganda!
when looking at the website, i just focus my eyes on that beatiful little favicon – relic of an era gone past – when TechCrunch was beautiful and our collective outlook a little bit brighter…
Mike, you say “through the end of year” … so is this a promotion-type thing or a permanent change?
Kinda sucks. Everyone’s against the Brits.
As they don’t need them anymore, US and Canada residents should give some of the SkypeOut minutes (already bought) to international users. What do you think?
Only if you pay me for those minutes Nuno. Otherwsie the pay the smae thing we all did.
Cheers
Great way to get people hooked and then reintate fees…
i’d be willing to give my minutes to a non-profit, though i’m not sure if transferring credits is possible.
People do stupid things. Like pay for phone calls.
Sure, now that they have my money, they make all calls free.
Sounds great now I just need to get the Polycom communicator. http://dazilgroup.com/blog/ to see it.
Wow. Great marketing and sales move. I think it’ll work for them in the long run.
Shut up, just shut up! You had me at “free.”
I’m in the UK, and although it would be nice to make free phone calls, I still appreciate how good Skype is, all-round. It might be better not to get hooked on free calls just to get them taken away at the end of the year.
Actually, I’m damn happy that I’m in the UK in terms of phones. Our “cell” phones don’t charge for incoming (at all!) and pay-as-you-go is much better than plans. You guys don’t get the good pay-as-you-go services, though, like o2 or Orange.
I’m hoping Skype starts charging less for mobile calls.
A step in the right direction…however, I second Dave Winer’s question.
Orange is Cingular O_O
My bad
I have tried to use the free Skypeout feature for free calls within NorthAmerica with a NorthAmerica initiation of call and it does not seem to be working, it is great to offer this free service but it would be even greater if it actually worked
So….why not just set up a VPN into the US and then out for free?
I had no trouple using free Skype service, I think you need to add the user first to your Skypeout account.
Larry, I tried what you suggested but it keeps on telling me I need to buy credits
FU (Frustrated User):
Remember to dial a “+1″ and the area code in front of the number you wish to dial.
Robert,
yes I am using the 1 and area code in front of the number and yes my system is plugged in, the skypeout feature is not workking and what is worse I have emailed Skype 2 emails from this morning and they have not responded
if JavaOne happened, and nobody noticed, would it matter?
oh yeah – and the $50 Billion dollar question, of course, is has Skype yet, or will Skype, comply with the Department of Injustice and hand over all our bits and bytes?
Yeah – I know – carnivore/patriot act/etc. – doesn’t much matter any more, but still. Let’s say I’m nostalgic for the old America – does using Skype getting me back to when ‘the rule of law’ seemed to matter to folks on the Right?
just asking…
This is one of the greatest news i have heard in the past little bit. Great work and I am sure cingular and the other suckers are shaking in their corporate chairs right now…
Wow, the new Techcrunch has a TON of ads!
Just tried it out man, that is really cool.
The sound quality is like the real phone,(maybe better than the cellphone).
A+
So does that mean people from overseas will be able to use a US proxy and call USA? Then that means all someone has to do in say India, is find a bunch of proxies and wala a load of free calls to unsolicited US citizens. I’m glad I’m not in the USA I can tell you that
how do get this thing to work. Do we need to buy initial credit??
vivek, I am having the same trouble, it is not working for me, I think one has to buy initial credit and dish out 10 Euros, this is not free as far as I am concerened.
I have been using voipstunt for the last few months and find it fantastic (www.voipstunt.com). The cost is about $10 for 120 days and the quality has been great – I actually find Skype very touch and go in comparison. Also you are able to call many countries for free including the US – I use it from Australia to the UK twice a week and have saved a ton in phone bills.
Thanks for all the great insight on Techcrunch.
what is going on with the color scheme…its ugly to say the least…
i hope you change it back to how it was…or i’ll just have to rely on the feed reader…
Do I need a skype card to take advantage of this? I just tried setting up an account and it won’t let me make a call…it complains that I don’t have a card…I thought the service was free in the us.
I too was having trouble calling an outside line, experiencing the errors others have mentioned above.
Just needed to upgrade to the newest version (2.0.0.105) and everything worked great! Free calls to ALL!
I’m in Argentina now on an extended visit and have been using skype to call back home and it works beautifully. It’s charging 2 cents/min though – somehow it knows I’m in Argentina I guess from the IP I bet – but for just 2 cents min, who cares, its already so cheap! By the way, someone calling you on your skype-in USA number is free even if you are in Argentina, so I’m not sure why its being limited to just USA users. I can simply have the person call me back after I call them so I don’t have to spend 2 cents/min!
I think this might be just a promotion tactic from skype to checkout the consumer response.
Blaze, first off, why say Indians? Don’t generalise just because a bunch work in call centres. Not everyone does. And not every Indian is looking to hound you and make unsolicited calls to you for free. I’ve seen this attitude enough on Digg and Dvorak Uncensored and I don’t like it.
John, Vivek, just as Brett mentioned above, all you need is the latest version of Skype and this will work fine. I’m not sure how it is with Mac users. Is this service working with the OS X version of Skype? Would someone please care to enlighten me?
This is probably bad for U.S./Canada people who have bought Skype credits, but do not have to use them anymore because SkypeOut is now free. If it will remain free, I wonder if Skype will allow users to get their money back? Hopefully people have not paid too much money for Skype credits.
Phone calls are free BUT you need a skypeout phone number I believe in order to make the offer work.
Simran: I downloaded the latest version after i saw the post. Maybe they are throwing out the feature to random users, or just want to see how many people download their client on release of this news so that they can fleece someone else after ebay(i still cant belive the price tag for an IM). Couldnt find anything written clearly on their site whether they want $$’s for this service.
This seems like a very strange move…what’s the business logic behind it?
Fabulous – my friend Colin Rule from PayPal will be happy. See https://ict4pea...cue/#comment-31
Why are they doing this? To increase north american usage. Usage in the states of skype is far below the usage around the world – so they’re doing a promotion in their weakest market to increase awareness, penatration and usage. Then they go back to charging. All IMHO of course…