February 20, 2009
By Gülay Birand
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Skype, iSkoot, Truphone and VOIP
There are a limited number of technologies that have made a fundamentally positive impact in my life and Skype is certainly one of the chosen few.
In the past, phoning my family in Turkey from the US was an expensive ordeal. The options were limited and expensive:
Dialing direct
Positives:
- Good sound quality and limited numbers to dial
Negatives:
- Very expensive with connection fees (unless you have a monthly international calling plan) and exorbitant per minute rates.
- From a mobile phone it’s so expensive I shouldn’t even mention this as an “option,” but here goes (these rates my have changed since I wrote the initial post a while back): 2.29/minute to landline 2.38/minute to cellular and as a bonus the cell phone receiving the call get’s charged double for some unfathomable reason.
- I should also mention that in the early days, you had to ACTIVATE your phone to dial international numbers. So, in an emergency for instance, reassuring loved ones that you’re OK was a romantic notion at best.
- If you signed up for the “save-you-a-bundle-not” monthly plan at 3.99/month, your rates would be .36/minute for landline and .45/minute for mobile
Calling Cards
Positives:
- Lower rates than dialing direct
Negatives:
- The numerous numbers dialed seem to take as long as the calls
- Terrible sound quality with unpleasant echoing and other noise as well as frequently dropped calls
- Calling card companies seem to be like last seasons shoes, you use them, get used to them and when you want another pair they’re no longer available. They seem to go out of business like there’s no tomorrow. So, in the long term you can’t expect to stick with one company and it’s lengthy access code you painstakingly memorized.
As I grappled with these non-options in the early 2000’s, the clouds broke and we were all introduced to the wonderful world of Skype. All in all, it’s not a surprise that this model worked, Skype’s success is based on the fact that it’s founders could easily answer these three fundamental questions with a resounding “YES,” in it’s early days:
- Is my product something that will satisfy a need for a large enough user base (or target market)?
- Are these users meeting these needs in any other way right now?
- Will my product provide better and more immediate relief to their need/s than what they are currently using?
Their call options were introduced in this order:
- Computer to Computer
- Computer to Phone (and vice versa)
- Mobile Skype to Computer
- Mobile Skype to Landline or Mobile
When Skype was first made available the only option was the first one I mentioned, Computer to Computer. We may not think twice about it today but it certainly took us a while to wrap our minds around the concept. We all kept thinking there was a catch and that it was too good to be true and that surely, we would be charged insane sums through our ISPs. None of this turned out to be true, this WAS the real deal.
After the first option was adopted, slowly the second option was introduced. Purchasing SkypeOut minutes allowed users to call landlines from their Computers. This was the moment I had been waiting for, I heartily kissed my international phone plan goodbye and sent it packing forever. In fact, today, I do not have a land line any longer. For local calls, I use my mobile for international calls, I use Skype. Our total telecommunications bills have been more than halved.
With the third and fourth options Skype presented, my life changed. I no longer ended up tethered to my home timing the appropriate 10 hour difference in order to phone my parents in Turkey. I could be having brunch on a Sunday at Le Pichet in downtown Seattle and still call my parents via iSkoot (an intermediary application that connects my mobile device with SKype) or Truphone (via my iPhone where a wifi connection is available) on their home phone. I can do this with a peace of mind, that I will not receive an insanely high phone bill from my cellular carrier.
iSkoot usese air minutes (but still ONLY air minutes not 2.29/minute) to connect me with Skype and considering the alternative, I can live with that. Truphone is very similar to iSkoot however, a separate Truphone credit must be purchased to make calls. The rates are negligible. Calling landlines in Turkey is $.075 and mobile phones is $.352. Of course Truphone to Truphone is free. This may not seem like a terribly useful application to some but if you are sitting in a cafe, anywhere in the world and you have access to wifi, it becomes much easier to make that phone call to loved ones. I used Truphone a bunch of times while in South Africa this past December, updating everyone of our whereabouts. The whole time roaming was turned off on iPhone but wifi was on for any free connections where I could make a call.
For true VOIP, those of us who own a PocketPC or Mobile PC, using Skype via your data line is a possibility. Drum roll- you can use your mobile to speak with others and only be charged the monthly fee for your data package. I’ve noticed in message board and blog posts there are those already out there looking for carriers that offer ONLY data packages.
Of course, it is imperceptible that carriers would willingly want to embrace such a technology that would take billions of dollars out of their pockets but it is conceivable that in the future with blanket wi-fi in major cities, phones like the NetGear Skype WiFi phone will be adopted more widely.
Rick Stenson said on February 21, 2009
I find that I’m using Skype more often myself. My wife has a family that lives in Nicaragua. On one of our visits we set them up with a video camera and microphone so they can see us and the grandkids and we can see them. It’s so much better to be able to phone her family and not only hear their voice but also see them via video camera. Landlines can’t provide you with this kind of service.
Gülay Birand said on August 12, 2010
I completely agree Rick. It’s amazing how much closer one feels when there is a visual in place.