This is the real power of the Internet as far as I'm concenred. Skype.Com, a website offering downloads of an app that turns your computer into a telephone is now allowing you to call real phones for free.
Up until this past Monday, they've been charging about two cents per minute to make a call to an old skool phone--still a serious bargain over most alternatives--mind you that's two cents a minute almost anywhere in the world--no long distance charges. However, until the end of the year, calls to the US and Canada are entirely free--which is sweet. The reason this is an example of the real power of the 'net is because the folks at Skype have decided that 7 months of revenue from their outgoing Voice over IP (VoIP) service is worth sacrficing to get more people to use Skype.
In other words, it probably costs them virtually nothing to provide the service as it is. What this means, in turn, is that it just might be a signal that the end of per-minute charges for voice communication is nigh.
This is not to say that Skype (or any other type of VoIP) is perfect. My outgoing voicemail message disappears all too often and sometimes voicemail doesn't pick up at all--which is frustrating since voicemail is part of the SkypeIn service--which I pay for. Granted, it's only $12 (or so) for 3 months, but still, I pay for a phone number that allows normal phones to call me and that comes with "free" voicemail--so it should ALWAYS pick up when I don't. Also, the Internet can drop calls just as often as a cell phone service can (if not more often, in my experience).
So, if you decide to try out Skype, don't assume it's just like your landline or even your mobile phone. However, it is super cheap and, generally speaking, it works pretty well.
You can read more about Skype's freeness in [http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20060515-6835.html|a May 15, 2006 article] at Arstechnica.com.
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