[IP] more on Tune In, Turn On, Skype Out
Begin forwarded message:
From: Srini RamaKrishnan <cheeni@xxxxxxx>
Date: July 3, 2004 3:50:06 AM EDT
To: dave@xxxxxxxxxx, dewayne@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: Re: [IP] Tune In, Turn On, Skype Out
On Thursday, July 01, 2004 12:42 PM, David Farber wrote:
Begin forwarded message:
From: Dewayne Hendricks <dewayne@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: July 1, 2004 9:44:54 AM EDT
<snip>
Tune In, Turn On, Skype Out
By Kevin Werbach
Published
07/01/2004
<http://www.techcentralstation.com/070104F.html>
<snip>
Fees
throughout the US and most of Europe and Asia are .012 Euros per
minute, or about 1.5 cents. And Skype is global. There is no difference
between domestic and international service: a call to New York from
Japan is the same price as one from Philadelphia. Calls to other Skype
users still cost exactly zero.
With my limited experience in calling my parents in India for about 90
minutes every other week for the last 2 years from continental USA, I
can
tell you that SkypeOut isn't very interesting to me.
I use cheap phone cards [1] typically costing 11 - 17 cents a minute to
India, with good-excelent voice quality. SkypeOut's rates are
unattractively
"11" cents a minute. Considering that regular Skype has never worked
well
for me (see below), AND that I'll be speaking into a computer, I'm not
enthusiastic.
My success rates with Skype (not SkypeOut) to call friends within the
US has
been phenomenal, and, rather pointless - my cell phone has free long
distance.
On the other hand, whenever I've used the p2p Skype application (not
SkypeOut) to call a computer in India, I've had little success. I've
typically been on a T3 or greater connection and my parents (in India)
have
been on a cable connection with atleast syymetric 128kbps rates.
In my opinion, there aren't enough peer-computers with Skype
switched-on in
India. Given that most Indian ISPs charge on a metered usage basis,
this is
to be expected. Whereas the connection using Yahoo messenger or other
non-p2p VoIP apps has been fair-excellent at all times.
Srini
[1] http://reliablecom.com/ - AFAIK, merely a reseller - they sell
cards as
low as 6 cents/min to India; which are often of murky legitimacy. I use
cards that are around 15c, and are often delivered by large carriers
like
MCI which sell whole-sale chunks of calling time to reliablecom.
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