“Skype is a little program for making free calls over the internet to anyone else who also has Skype. It’s free and easy to download and use, and works with most computers.”
Last week, The New York Times had an article on internet telephony including this paragraph:
Skype (www.skype.com), a popular VoIP network based in Luxembourg, has had 51 million users register worldwide since its inception, with five million in the United States and an average of three million users logged on at any one time. To make free calls to other PC’s, users simply download the Skype software from the Web site; the PC receiving the Skype call also has to be connected to the Skype network. For PC-to-phone calling, the company has added SkypeOut and SkypeIn. With SkypeOut, introduced last year and now having more than two million users, PC’s with the Skype software are able to call conventional phones. Minutes are purchased in advance, and the price depends on the destination. Calls within the continental United States, for example, are 2.1 cents a minute; calls to New Delhi are 15.4 cents; São Paulo, Brazil, 2.5 cents; and Beijing, 2.1 cents.
So, you can see, Skype is free only between Skype users. Still …
[Update: NewMexiKen tested Skype and found the quality and ease of use to be superb.]
I tested this Skype with NewMexiKen and I concur, it works very well.