Beginning in 2007, SkypeOut calls will no longer be free within the US and Canada. The company announced on Wednesday that they would start to charge a yearly fee to call from Skype to any mobile or land-line phone. Calls from PC to PC will remain free.
Unlimited yearly calling will cost $29.95. If you purchase the plan before January 31, 2007, it will only cost $14.95. Without an unlimited plan, users can pay 2.1 cents per minute to calls within the U.S. and Canada, which is the same as the rate for international calls.
“We see a willingness by consumers to make SkypeOut calls that are well priced,” Don Albert, Skype’s general manager for North America, told The New York Times.
SkypeOut calls have been free within the US and Canada since last Spring as a promotion, although it was always a paid service internationally. Given that most phone plans average about $30 per month, $30 per year is still pretty darn cheap. I purchased the plan at $14.95 and noticed that you can only purchase one year at the discounted rate.
That is not new! The free Skype out was not available for the rest of the world and you have to pay and for what I know it is working pretty well on other countries like Spain.
I guess they know this will be a success before they even launch it.
>>Calls from PC to PC will remain free.
As long as PC to PC will remain free, skype is going to very popular.
The charge for skypeout calls could be the ultimate “cash cow” for skype.
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This offer seems to be US only.
The other 6.2 billion of us will have to pay for SkypeOut, the same as before.
Count me in to the small rest of those people that don’t live in the land of freedom.
I’m actually canceling my 20€/month phone plan since I only pay €0.02 (inc. Vat) to Spain - an international call for me.
Skype is a great product.
I think Skype will find it difficult to successfully offer a paid service while other providers (e.g. http://www.palore.com) continue to offer free calls to land line and mobile phones.
Skype Out was never free !
Maybe except for us or special offers.
“free domestic “SkypeOut” calls”
The new is unlimited call for an annual fee.
Big difference
“it would begin charging $30 a year for unlimited calls to landline and mobile phones within the United States and Canada.”
Same source
Cool bargain, 12 times cheaper than mobile. I think Global Villagers owe a lot to Americans. The internet and related technologies are keeping services within reach of ordinary people. In the absense of competing technologies people would try and gain monopoly profits.
Agree with other commenters, and indeed if you check the archives at TechCrunch you’ll probably find a post about when Skype announced that it was providing free calls for users in the US and Canada as a way to increase market penetration in North America (it’s traditionally been stronger elsewhere). As an Australian I’ve been paying for Skype out since day 1. Either you need to get away from your US centric view Natali, or alternatively get Mike to fact check, this is a sloppy story and we’ve come to expect far better from TechCrunch.
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I dont understand. Skypeout was never free. Even if it was free in the Northamerica. It was never free to call intrenational calls. It has always been a price even if it was cheap it was never free. A company that is free though is http://www.internetcalls.com there is a list of maby 20 countries where you can call internetnational landlines for free. including handphone lines in the USA…
Didn’t know it was free in the first place! Oh, except it wasn’t for most of us
if i buy it before end of Jan i pay these 15 dollars and call my mom in turkey for for whole year long for free?
http://www.raketu.com this site sez that u can call free and send sms for free…
I advise my small business clients to sign up for Skype to keep their costs down to a minimum during start up. Everyone likes the service.
though i don’t think techcrunch is completely US focused (they have launched a UK version a couple of months ago) you guys should really consider the non-US based readers
not sure what the ratio is, i assume the vast majority of your audience is indeed from the US but with stories like this it would be nice to highlight that this “news” is about the US market only.
just my two cents
Will the Skype Out that you pay for include a free phone number?
I’m sorry I didn’t make it clear that SkypeOut was only free for calls within the US and Canada. The service has only been free here since last Spring as a promotion but it has always been 2.1 cents per minute internationally. Thanks for your notes!
As long as PC to PC remains free…fine by me. Its a great service though…the quality is good and helps save a lot of cash…quite a bit.
Greg is absolutely right……..
“I advise my small business clients to sign up for Skype to keep their costs down to a minimum during start up. Everyone likes the service.”
I don’t know about the rest of you. I’ll definitely continue using skype. the price is still cheaper than landlines. the quality is great.
Natali,
Meta-comment about this story. You changed the URL from the originally published one (http://www.techcrunch.com/2006/12/13/time-for-skype-to-start-charging). This messes up other people who have linked to your site. You should at least provide a redirect from the original URL to the new one (and avoid the change completely if possible).
this is getting more and more expensive… I never used Skype since I found VoipBuster … it has so much more features and is way cheaper.
its still cheaper than most landlines…point blank period
Starting a new company 18 months ago, we used Skype as our only phone system…up to about 12 people. It messed up rarely, but just enough that we ended up adding regular service.
http://doxspot.blogspot.com/
Blah blah blah… Greg if you advise your small business clients to use Skype, I wonder how you get clients. Skype is horrible for business lines. Whenever you call out on Skype your number shows up as ‘Unknown’ or ‘+10000001234′. This is critical when calling clients, because a lot of people don’t answer blocked numbers. Until they fix this I think they will lose a lot of business.
I will miss the free Skype.
This is silly news. There are lots of other VOIP companies out there offering free PC-to-phone calls. And the quality is at least as good as Skype. This sounds just like an infomercial :/
I am definetly purchasing this plan immediately. I love SkypeOut, the quality is decently (though sometimes a bit tinny or echo-ish) good. I now only utilize cell phones and Skype. I’d like to get a SkypeIn line sometime in the near future and a better Skype phone.
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