Selfsufficientish.com

anyone have a skype phone? are they worth investing in and do you have to have your computer on all the time to use it?

I have skype but haven't bothered to get a skype phone with it - if you have a PC with a microphone and speaker it costs nothing because Skype itself is free to download. Phones are aboput £30 and plus into your computer.

I use it all the time to speak to friends/colleagues/customers who have skype and its great quality. Most people use a headset but I tend to just talk in the direction of my laptop and it picks it up fine, I think the quality loss is dependent on the qauipment rather than skype. I've only ever tried it with broadband though.

Yes you need to have your PC on to run it, and its not really a replacement for a standard phone (not least because you need to have either dial up or ADSL to use the internet which means you have to have a phone line anyway).

You can call non skype numbers (normal phone lines) on it sometimes free and sometimes charged, depending on destination, and you can receive calls from normal phones if you pay for a 'skype number' which allows them to call you which is useful if you don't want to get calls on your mobile abroad.

There are other services which people say are better (like Vonage but you have to pay which pretty much negates the object for me)

And you can do conference calls, and video conferencing (which I've never tried but its meant to be standard fairly skippy VC)

Definately worth getting :)

I've also got the skype but not the skype phone itself. We did get one with our BT broadband but our connection speed was so dire at first we haven't yet set this up. Will give it a go though - we've got the equipment as it came free with our bb and you just use an ordinary handset that plugs into YET ANOTHER modem.

worth thinking about then. will have a bit more of a look into it.

Now that Skype is finally allowing alternative methods of payment to credit cards, I am defo interested. If I can route calls from an 0845 number, then I am sold.

The One Show (BBC1, Mon-Fri, 7pm) featured an article on Internet telephony.
Here's a brief report:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/theoneshow/feature ... alls.shtml

Just installed Skype today, the Permaculture Association Council of Management have been thinking about using it for our teleconfernences as at the moment we are being charged £15 a time by our current provider. However although Sype offers free teleconferening its only up to 5 people allowed so won't be much use for us, but might be usable for teleconfernces of smaller working parties, etc.

quercusrobur wrote:However although Sype offers free teleconferening its only up to 5 people allowed so won't be much use for us, but might be usable for teleconfernces of smaller working parties, etc.

That would be useful to the Neeps! group - thank you.

even if you don't use the phone bit it's a great instant mesanger
We've had one for a while now and it's been worth it's money. My OH bought a rare collectable from Austraila (because thats the only place that it was released in) He had some probs with the delivery. So he used skype to phone oz only cost 3p a min.

Sorry if I sound a bit stupid, but what are you on about? I've got broadband so are you saying I can run a phone for free on the internet? If so, how do I do it?

the only time it's free is if the person our phoning has skype , otherwise it's cheaper than normal. http://www.skype-stop.com/index.asp?s=o ... C=standard

Karen_Grace wrote:Sorry if I sound a bit stupid, but what are you on about? I've got broadband so are you saying I can run a phone for free on the internet? If so, how do I do it?

Basically, yes.

This technology is VOIP (Voice Over IP) and allows you to make phone calls through your pc. Various companies provide the service, with Skype being one of the more well known ones. VOIPBuster are another. If you are to call somebody else who is on Skype, for example, and you also have Skype, the phone calls are free. If they are not on Skype, there is a call charge, but it is often very small (1 or 2 pence per minute). Broadband is essential, and preferably you should be running an operating system higher than Win98. All you have to do is choose your provider, download/install the program, and hook up a microphone and earphones and then start chatting.

So if you had sattelite Broadband, you could do away with phone lines/companies?

Unless things have changed (or I'm completely wrong!), no, that's not possible. While you download by the receiving satellite dish, all sending requests/uploads are via the phone line. Aside from that, satellite broadband is quite costly, although coming down in price. Transmitting dishes (for doing away with a phone line) are huge.