Skype-ing Around the World

Skype is a software program that lets you use your computer and broadband connection to call friends around the world. Why would you want to use Skype when you can use a regular land line to make calls? Because it is completely free when you place or receive calls to other Skype users.

I use Skype to keep in touch with friends overseas. Eleni, a friend from college, is living in Paris. I chat with her via Skype occassionally. I was able to catch up with Eleni in Paris when my wife and I were there for our honeymoon.

Skype (pronounced SKY-pe) does charge for computer to telephone calls. Rates are reasonable - around 3 cents a minute, depending on where in the world you call. But sound quality is best when you call another Skype user on his computer. The last few calls I made from Skype to landlines and cell phones all experienced lousy sound quality. I just installed an updated version that may fix those quality issues.

Most people travel with their cell phones these days, and use their cell phones in lieu of hotel phones. If, for some reason, you travel with your computer laptop and don't have a cell phone, you can use Skype to make phone calls. Or, if you are overseas, you can either use your computer, or log onto a computer at an Internet cafe and call home.

Ebay, the online auction marketplace, bought Skype for $2.6 billion in 2005. This deal sounds like the Investment Bankers were able to somehow convince Ebay that it was better to spend billions of dollars acquiring a company with limited revenues that doesn't comfortably fit into the business model of auctions. Ebay could have spent a few million dollars writing their own software and rolling out their own online telephone service - giving it away free to its 60 million customers worldwide. I get the impression the Ebay buyout will work out as well as the AOL and Time-Warner merger. More recent rumors have Microsoft buying Ebay out. We'll have to see where that goes!