A Second Line for Your Kids or Home Office for $6.50/month

One of the more interesting technologies I’ve used in the last couple of years is Skype, the internet telephony service.  While I’ve been using VOIP for three years, and have been with my current cell carrier, Sprint, for five years, Skype’s new prix fixe approach to phone services makes it a compelling choice for me.  Here’s an analysis of the costs of a fully tricked-out Skype line in your house:

	Skype Account	Free
	Unlimited US Calling	$29.95/yr
	Skype-In (normal phone number)	$38.00/yr
	Base minutes for other needs	$10.00/yr
	$77.95/year or $6.50/month

I have a Skype Out number (865-329-6789), and have been very impressed with the service.  Since my Mom and Dad live 300 miles away, and my brother lives 2,700 miles away. Lately, I’ve been using it more, and I’m more impressed with it every day.  Heck, I can even call my friend Ward in Halifax on Skype for free, and it works pretty good on just about all of the Wi-Fi connections I use in hotels.

A few caveats for you:

1.       Almost all Skype devices connect to a PC with a USB cable, and use your high speed internet connection. (This is a great use for that old PC sitting in the corner that the kids won’t use anymore).

2.       If you like regular phones instead of the cheesy headsets, you can purchase them at most electronic stores.  I have purchased two, and have been impressed with both.  I’m so impressed with them that I’m sending one of them to my Mom for her to use when talking to Baker and the other grandkids.

Here are the devices I’ve used:

Skytone Skype USB Speakerphone with LCD, RST201- $45.62 at WalMart.com

VTech Cordless Dual-Line PC Phone for Skype VoIP - $79.99 at Best Buy.

The first one (Skytone) is a speakerphone, and has cords, so it’s good for use in an office or by a PC.  The second is a neat device – it connects to both your landline phone and your PC with a USB cable, and lets you talk on either service (POTS or Skype) from the same handset.  The only downside is that the Vtech Cordless works on the 2.4Ghz spectrum (same as Wi-Fi, microwave ovens, and other gadgets) instead of the 5.8 GHz spectrum (used only on 802.11a), so it can have some interference issues.

If you’re looking to the summer with dread as your kids talk on the phone all day while they’re out of school, don’t overlook Skype – it’s cheap, it works with the real telephone network, and it can help you not incur those $0.40/minute charges for going over on the cell phone.

Just as hot water became a precious commodity when your kids became teenagers, upstream bandwidth can become just as rare when kids are using Skype.  (Upstream bandwidth is the upload speed you get from your internet service provider, and is lower than the download, or downstream, speed.  Test your speeds at dslreports.com).  If you have a standard cable internet connection (3M down, 256K up), the 256K upstream bandwidth may cause issues with your call quality, especially if your kids are working the Napster subscription all of the time in the background.  You should expect a Skype session to take 30-80K of upstream bandwidth by itself, so this isn’t an option for dialup users.  I’ve got a 10M down/1M up connection, so my connection can handle a Broadvox VOIP call, two Skype sessions, and a torrent of podcast downloads at the same time – but if you’re having issues, think about what else is going through your internet connection.