I'm thinking of a number between thirty and a hundred. Can
you guess what it is? Need a clue?
It's the number of dollars my
business line costs me every month. Anybody care to hazard a guess?
Darn. I was hoping someone could tell me, because I have no idea. I
dragged in a second phone line into my home a decade ago to handle all
my business calls, and I've been paying for it ever since.
Looking back over my papers, I can see that the number was never
less than $38 a month including and taxes. On months with lots of
long-distance calls, that number can almost double.
I've not been
happy with my phone service for a couple of years now. It hemorrhages
money as it is, and to get features I could really use, such as call
forwarding and conferencing, it would cost even more. That's just not
good enough.
What I'd really like to do is get a voice-over-IP
(VoIP) account that uses my broadband Internet connection to make calls,
then and port my business phone number over to it. The drawback to that
little scheme, according to my local Verizon office, is that my DSL
Internet access is on my business phone line. It's technically possible
to uncouple DSL from my phone number (it's called "naked DSL" or "dry
loop DSL"), but not in my neighborhood, they say. I'm not ready to
abandon my DSL account yet, and I'm certainly not going to change my
business phone number.
Cheap Calls on a $600 Phone
So I was in the market for a versatile and cheap phone
solution I can use for long-distance. The target number here was 4. With
my current long-distance plan, I spend 5 cents a minute on my
long-distance calls, more when I dial Europe, and I wanted to beat that
by at least a cent. I halved my current rate at Skype.com by downloading
their software and using my computer as a giant multipurpose phone.
Skype software comes in Windows, Mac, Linux, and Pocket PC
flavors and uses whatever microphone or headphone combo you have plugged
into it. Alternatively, you could use your notebook's built-in mic and
speakers an ersatz speakerphone.
To make Skype-to-phone calls,
you buy blocks of $10 credits that you use up at a rate of 2.1 cents per
minute on calls to the 48 contiguous United States, Canada, most of
Europe, Hong Kong, China ... and a whole mess of other
countries. Better yet, Skype tracks your calls as you make them,
ready to export to CSV file so you can track your phone usage for
billing or tax purposes.
I'd heard that my cheap second-tier DSL
account didn't have the bandwidth to handle VOIP, but I've spent the
past two days talking myself ragged over my Skype account, hearing pins
drop at the other end of the line, and having callers have commented on
how clear the line is.
I don't know that Skype's actual quality
are better than Verizon's dedicated phone line, but clearly, a cheap
desktop phone is no match for the gooseneck microphone and Labtec
headphones hooked up to my PC.
Call my Local Office
An hour after scattershot calling on Skype, flushed with
success, I set up a new phone number for myself in Europe, so my clients
and colleagues out there can call me on a local number. I've got that
new number for $38 too, but that's good for an entire year.
After
sending out an e-mail announcement, I started getting calls from people
whose voices I hadn't heard in years. There's nothing like a local
number to get your cash-strapped friends picking up a phone. In fact, I
missed a few calls, but Skype's voicemail picked them up and gave them
ten minutes to say their piece.
The SkypeIn service, which gives
out the phone numbers, is currently in beta, but in my hours-long,
multiple-call test, it's proved pretty stable. The only problem is that
telephonically speaking, I'm not actually making outgoing calls from my
incoming number.
This means that cell phone users or those with
caller ID will see a bogus number for incoming calls--and may not be
inclined to pick up for 0000123456. But outgoing number blocking is
common enough on landline phones too, so you can't really lay that
problem at Skype's feet.
So, anytime you're in the middle of
England, feel free to give me a call. It's a local number for you. But I
could be anywhere with a broadband connection when I pick up. And you'll
be able to hear a pin drop at my end. I've been dropping a lot of pins
lately ... but not a lot of pennies.
Contributing
Editor Matt Lake writes SOHO Advisor monthly for ComputerUser.
