more on Tune In, Turn On, Skype Out

[David Farber <dave () farber net>]

Begin forwarded message:

From: Srini RamaKrishnan <cheeni () cmu edu>
Date: July 3, 2004 3:50:06 AM EDT
To: dave () farber net, dewayne () warpspeed com
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 () warpspeed com>
> 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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