I have used Skype forever and connect to my buddy Mark in Tanzania via Skype almost daily. Unfortunately, I have to pay SkypeIn and SkypeOut fees in order to really use the service when I want to use phone numbers and not just Peer-to-Peer calls. I like trying out new VOIP services like Gizmo but Gizmo sucks. Now there is iCall with free calls to the USA and canada, free voicemail, and unlimited inbound calling. I am going to check it out. iCall might just be able to take Skype’s lunch money.
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SkypeOut calls to american and canadian users ARE free for users from US or Canada :)
this might be a late comment..
Sander the option you’re referring to considering skype is valid till decembre 2006, it won’t be free anymore.As for icall, i want to try it but i’m afraid it will do the same thing as skype, and by that i mean, using people’s bandwith while you’re not using it yourself which i consider to be not fair.
What do you mean by, “and by that i mean, using people’s bandwith while you’re not using it yourself which i consider to be not fair”?
Is this along the lines of net neutrality? Getting a “free” service at the expense to the network? Or, something else?
What i’m referring to is an article in Skype’s EULA, where it mentions the possibility than any user with a good broadband connexion and a fast CPU can become a Supernode, in other words, Skype would be using the user’s bandwidth through which other users may connect. It’s better explained in here http://www.voipwiki.com/blog/?p=30 and also in wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skype
As for this having anything to do with Net Neutrality, i don’t think so.
Cool. That is sort of like Limewire or the old days of Napster, where you could be a node or a supernode, so that Skype would become a real-time P2P truly decentralized load-balanced system… its own little internet within the internet — very cool!