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Skype takes on the home phone providers
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Skype launches home phone call packages
Garnet Roach garnet@consumerchoices.co.uk
Internet telephony provider Skype has gone into direct competition with home phone providers with the launch of a new series of monthly call packages.
Skype’s three new subscriptions allow “unlimited” calls (fair usage applies) to over a third of the world’s population, starting from only £1.95 a month for the UK landline package through to £6.95 a month for unlimited calls to landlines in 34 countries and mobile numbers in the US, Canada, Singapore and China. A Europe-wide package is also available for £2.95 a month.
Stefan Oberg, vice president and general manager of telecoms at Skype, said: “This move is a natural step for Skype. Skype was founded on the principle of making free voice and video calls available to people all around the world. And now we’re making it even easier for the Skype community to call their friends and family who are not yet on Skype. Our subscriptions give people an easy, hassle-free choice for how and when they want to catch up with their loved ones.
“For example if you live in London, you can call your grandmother in Poland, whenever you like, talk for up to six hours at a time, and not worry about how much it’s costing you. Your grandmother doesn’t need to understand the internet. You just use your Skype subscription to make the call and she just picks up the phone,” he continued.
The monthly subscriptions have no minimum contract length but customers signing up to the 3 and 12 month options before 1 June 2008 will receive a 33 per cent discount.
Michael Phillips, BroadbandChoices.co.uk product director, said: “When you compare these packages to BT's (www.BT.com) calling costs - which can be as much as 4.5p a minute during the day,1.5p a minute in the evenings and a 6p set-up fee - as well as the £11 a month charge for line rental you can see just how much you could save.
“Although many people can’t completely do away with BT because they need a BT line for their ADSL broadband, Virgin Media (www.VirginMedia.com) cable customers and selected Tiscali (www.Tiscali.co.uk) customers that get “free line rental” could really reduce their costs and completely cut line rental from their monthly bills.”
309 million people currently use Skype’s range of services, from free voice and video calls, to cheap calls and even a new Skype phone that has been launched on 3 (www.Three.co.uk), allowing free Skype to Skype calls from your mobile.
Related article - Broadband with no land line.
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