Broadband Phone Services

So what is Skype?

In case you haven’t heard or if you are new to online communication, Skype is a software application which allows its users to easily voice call each other – over the Internet or on landline and mobile phones, to transfer files, instant message and even hold online video conferences.

Its popularity built up fast since development back in 2003 and at the moment Skype Limited, the developer company, claims 23 million users online at peak times. Moreover, Skype is responsible for 12% of the global international calling minutes.

Wait till you hear about the features!

Skype surely knows how to promote itself into your lives, as long as you take a little time to check out the features their software offers (many of which come free by only downloading the application and creating an account!)

Yes, you read the brackets note right – many of the features Skype brings to its users are free of any cost.

Let’s take a closer look at these free features, because I assume the most common user will probably only be interested in those.

I’ll start with the basic Skype-to-Skype call. What’s that and how it works? Yes, as you probably figured out by yourself, this feature allows you to call your Skype friends and contacts over the Internet, anytime you want (well, as long as both you and your dialog partners are online). I must admit that the sound quality is pretty impressive, even when you make really  distant calls, let’s say from US to Japan or even Australia! All it takes for such a call is at least a microphone – so that it can actually be classified as “a call”- , speakers and a decent Internet connection. As a highlight, for higher quality calls users are recommended to use headsets; they surely do the trick much better than the microphone-speakers combination!

Another feature is the Instant Message feature. I find this function really convenient, because writing can be so sterile (if performed right) and hide a grumpy mood that on a normal voice call wouldn’t pass unnoticed. Plus, for those who aren’t able to provide the best words to express their thoughts, there are always a whole bunch of Emoticons (“Smiley faces” icons) you can insert into your chat lines. And hey, you can also insert URLs (links) for your chat partners to check, which is much more convenient than spelling it out loud in your microphone.

However, as a long term basic Skype user I must confess there is yet one major inconvenient about the Instant Messaging system (probably the reason they still call it Instant Message and not Personal Message) – you are not able to leave offline messages to your contacts and friends. Yes, it is really odd considering the massiveness of the Skype’s producer company, but for a written message to get across on Skype, the receiver has to be online.

Hopefully this will change in the near future, as so many devoted users ask on the official Skype forums.

Let’s move on, but look back a little as well, to the first feature we analyzed: the Skype-to-Skype call, also known as voice call. Besides this, Skype offers video calls. And they’re just as free as the voice ones! To cut it short, if you really miss your friends or if you just want to see how your contacts look like, you can always involve in a video call. This works on the same exact principles as the voice calls, so it requires that at least one of the users has a webcam.

And the last free feature I’m going to talk about, my favorite one – the file transfer feature. What’s so great about it? Well, perhaps only the fact that there are absolutely NO size limits and I repeat, NO SIZE LIMITS, not even for the basic Skype users. Plus you can send multiple files at the same time. I’m not sure how many, to be honest, but last time I checked I was able to send something about 40 files in a selection (I think I got a limit error  for a 48files selection). And yes, I really meant “in a selection”. Which means you can simply select a lot of files from your computer, drag them into the Skype window, then select another bunch of files and also drag them into the Skype window. The receiver will simply have to click  the “save files” button,  select the location on his or her hard drive and then sit back and relax while the files are being transferred… or continue chatting because yes, >Skype is as multitasking as it gets!

I think you should really give this Skype thing a try and see how it works for you for a while. If you’ll find it useful and worthy, you can always check the menu for the paid features, such as landline or mobile phone calls, SMS, voicemail and even access to Skype via WiFi hotspots.