Skype has axed fees on calls to landlines and mobile phones within the US and Canada for consumers in those regions.
Users placing a call to a regular telephone number from the Skype application previously were charged a per minute fee. While that fee will now be waived, phone calls to numbers in other regions will still be charged. Those rates are generally lower than those charged by competing telephony providers.
Skype is the world’s most popular VoIP application, boasting more than 100m registered users worldwide.
The free offer will make the application more attractive, argued Phil Wolff, editor of the Skypejournal blog.
“In one stroke Skype simplifies the choice to try Skype. No need to whip out a credit card or think about minutes. Just download and call. No trying to understand SkypeOut rates. No getting the boss to buy or reimburse credits. Simple. It will be easier to get someone hooked on SkypeOut to pay later, than to bring it up before installation.”
He added that Skype has a relatively weak position in the US and that the offering could help the company grow its market. The feature also could undermine business for competing products such as Vonage and Packet8, which offer VoIP services through a traditional telephone set as well as competing messaging platforms that offer outbound phone calls at a fee, including MSN Messenger and Yahoo Messenger.
It’s a brilliant and big news for me. I would instantly log on to Skype and use the service now. Wow!
This is for sure a big news for me and all the people who are accustomed to technology. I am super happy.