When you get a regular phone number from your local telephone company, you are typically only given the option of getting a number with the local area prefix of your geographic location. That is, you are restricted to dial-in numbers for the area where you live. This is not the case with SkypeIn numbers. With SkypeIn there’s nothing stopping you from having a London, England, number, even if you live in New York. Even better, there’s nothing stopping you from getting SkypeIn numbers for London and New York; and, based on your needs, dial-in numbers dotted around the globe. Welcome to the new world of Internet telephony!
At the time of this writing, SkypeIn numbers were available for the following countries: United States, United Kingdom, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Poland, Sweden, Switzerland, Brazil, and Hong Kong. Within each of these countries you are typically given the choice of several area codes to choose from. You can choose any country and available area code within that country for your SkypeIn number; you will have to choose from a predefined list of numbers for the digits that follow the area code. By choosing the country and area code carefully, you can have a SkypeIn number that best meets your needs—for example, to allow toll-free local calls for friends and family. Indeed, following this logic, you can pick and choose several SkypeIn numbers to minimize the hassle and cost of calls for your most frequent callers. This way, for example, you can have a local dial-in number for your home in New York and a dial-in number in Seattle for the convenience of your mom and dad living in the Seattle area.
2 comments:
You are leaving out one very important point that will cost your callers money. As you cite above, you can select the convenient area code and city within the area code that matches the local area you are calling, but unless the three digits after the area code match your Skype number, it is NOT a local call. Nowhere on any Skype page, or these discussions is this caveat mentioned. It's an important one since in most US cities and towns, there are multiple prefixes within the city limits. Upon further investigation, in my particular case, the phone company doesn't issue the prefixes to land lines because they are blocked out for services such as Skype to use. I would conclude it is very difficult to get a true local call in Skype without long distance charges with this unpublished caveat.
Can Skype either accept or refute these claims and let us know can local call charges be truly found with a Skype number??
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