How To Have Cheap SkypeOut Rate?

Many SkypeOut calls can be made at Skype’s low global rate of $0.021 (0.017 ) per minute. However, SkypeOut rates do vary by destination and the type of phone being called, and they are often more expensive when a call is made to a mobile phone. Before calling a new number, you can check the SkypeOut rate by using Skype’s Dialing Wizard, at www.skype.com/products/skypeout/rates/dialing.html. Using the Dialing Wizard you can check the SkypeOut rate for a number before making the call, which can avoid a costly mistake, as a handful of SkypeOut rates are $1.20 (1 ) or more per minute!

SkypeOut calls rounding

SkypeOut calls are rounded up to the next whole minute. So, if you make lots of short calls, you will end up paying for a lot of fractions of unused minutes. This “call rounding” effect means that your effective per minute call rate can be somewhat higher—up to about 40 percent more—than the advertised per minute call rate. Even with the call rounding effect, SkypeOut’s low per-minute call rates ensure that most of your calls will nevertheless be cheap. At Skype’s lowest global calling rate of $0.021 per minute, the worst case effect of call rounding results in an effective per minute call rate of only $0.029, which is still cheap when compared with most rates for domestic inter-State and international calls of regular and mobile phone plans.
SkypeOut calls of four seconds or less are free, and the clock starts running once a call connects. If you bail out of a SkypeOut call within the first four seconds, it will cost you nothing. So, rather than wait for someone’s answering machine, hang up and save yourself some money! Note that only the first four seconds of the very first minute of call time are free. After four seconds, all calls are rounded upwards in increments of one minute.

How to buy Skypeout credit?

Adding to your SkypeOut credit balance is a lot easier than the initial activation process. Just click on the Your Skype Account is Activated link, as shown in the previous figure. This opens a browser window and displays the sign-in page for your account. Sign in using your Skype username and password. This takes you to the Overview page for your account. Click the Buy More Skype Credit link and follow the payment instructions.

Anti-Fraud Scheme of SkypeOut

You should be aware of some of the antifraud restrictions Skype has put in place for new SkypeOut subscribers. The first three months as a SkypeOut subscriber are a probationary period in which the following restrictions apply:

• You will only be able to add to your SkypeOut credit balance if it falls below 5 ($6), or 50% of your initial purchase.
• If you pay by credit card, you will be limited to buying a total of 20 ($24) SkypeOut credits per month.
• If you pay using PayPal, your limit will be 30 ($36) per month.
• Using other payment methods, you are limited to 100 ($120) per month.

After three months, the restrictions are lifted. However, there is another restriction that never goes away: once you use a payment method (for example, a credit card or PayPal account) for one Skype account name, it cannot be used for any other Skype name. If you try to use that same credit card or online account to buy SkypeOut credits or other services for another Skype username, payment will be rejected. You can have several alternative payment methods for a single Skype account; it’s just that those same payment methods cannot thereafter be used for any other Skype account.

Getting SkypeOut

The easiest way to become a SkypeOut subscriber is to click on the My Account tab of the Notification Bar in the Skype softphone. This displays a group of links, including one for SkypeOut, as shown in the following figure. Click on the link for SkypeOut. This opens a browser window in which you are asked to sign in to your Skype account using the same user name and password that you use to sign in to the Skype softphone. After you’ve signed in you will be presented with a web page giving an overview of youraccount. Click on the link Buy Skype Credit. As a new Skype user your only option, using the Buy this button, is to buy 10 ($12) of credit to activate SkypeOut and provide some initial call time.
After clicking on the Buy this button for 10 ($12) of SkypeOut credit, you are asked to verify some information, including your e-mail address and Skype password. You must also select a preferred currency for payment purposes. Finally, you must agree to Skype’s terms of service and click the Submit button.
Skype will process your order and send a confirmation code—normally within just a few minutes—to the e-mail address you provided. Enter this confirmation code into the current web page, and then click the Submit Confirmation Code button. Make sure your preferred currency is shown, and then click the Buy this button. This takes you to a web page form that asks for your name and billing address. Fill in the form with your details. There are two buttons at the bottom of this form. The first is labeled Save and Use It Now, and the second is labeled Use This Address Only Once. If you plan to buy more SkypeOut credits in the future, click Save and Use This Now. By this time you must be wondering whether there’s an end to this process! The registration process has been set up to combat fraud and, fortunately, you only have to go through it once. So, hang in there—you’re almost done!
At this point you should be at the payment method page. Pick your preferred method of payment and click the Continue button. This takes you to the appropriate web page, operated by one of several financial institutions that process payments for Skype, based on your chosen method of payment.
Follow the instructions for your chosen payment method. After your payment is processed, you should see that SkypeOut has been activated and your account balance shown in the following figure. You are ready to start using Skype to call regular and mobile phones!

Keeping track of your SkypeOut accounting information

Another nice feature of SkypeOut is that you can easily review all your SkypeOut calls in a clearly organized Web-based table.
The steps involved in retrieving your accounting information are as follows:

1. Go to www.skype.com and click the Sign In link. You should see this link at the top of the page.
2. In the text input field, enter your Skype Name and password and click Secure Sign In Your Account Overview page appears.
3. Click the Calls & SMS history link.

You can view a list of your latest calls and SMS messages You should be aware that SkypeOut credit needs to be kept “alive.” If no SkypeOut activity occurs for 180 days, any of your remaining credit is wiped out. This does not mean that you must be using up your credit; it just means that you need to have some level of activity during any 180-day interval.

Navigating touch-tone and voicemail systems

Some of the SkypeOut calls you make may be to automated services that require you to press the touch-tone keypads of your phone. Because you’re calling from a computer, what do you do when the automated voice says, “Press 1 for Yes and 2 for No”? No problem! Skype provides you with a virtual keypad called a dial pad (see Figure 8-10) found on the Dial tab. If your Dial tab is not visible in the main Skype window, choose View➪View Dial from the Skype main menu.
To make dialing on a SkypeOut call even easier, you can copy a phone number residing in any document, such as an email, and paste it directly into the Skype Dial tab. Sometimes phone numbers have parentheses surrounding the area code. These will not cause you any problems. SkypeOut lets you call vanity numbers, which are phone numbers that have a matching word or acronym on the dial pad of a touchtone phone. For example, to order tax forms from the Internal Revenue Service, you can call 1-800-TAXFORM (1-800-829-3676). On the Skype Dial tab, you can enter 1-800-TAX-FORM and click the green call button. Skype then places a SkypeOut call to the phone number 1-800-829-3676. The next time you need a tax form, you know whom to call!

Dialing international calls with SkypeOut

To make an international call, precede the phone number with a plus sign (+) followed by the country code and the area code and local number. To find the country code, use the SkypeOut Dialing Wizard. On the Windows platform, you open this wizard by choosing Tools➪Call Forwarding and then clicking the Get Help Entering Phone Numbers link. On the Macintosh platform, you may have to add a plus (+) symbol, followed by the country code, the area code, and then the seven-digit phone number (even for local numbers). In the United States, the country code is 1. So, for example, to call toll-free information, you enter +1 800 555 1212. The link for the SkypeOut Dialing Wizard does not appear until you have bought SkypeOut credit.
When you click this link, you are taken to a Web page that lets you choose which country you want and assists you in entering the number correctly.
Macintosh users have a slick feature called a Widget that enables Skype users with Skype credit to make SkypeOut calls. It incorporates the long-distance calling wizard, so you don’t even need to go to a Web page to construct the phone number.
At the time you make your SkypeOut call, you know immediately what rate you are being charged. Skype alerts you to the calling rate by displaying a little caption that might say “United Kingdom 0.0253 $ per minute”. Very handy if you are watching your budget. The number used in this example is a purely fictitious number. If you use a number that doesn’t exist or is invalid, Skype warns you. As a particularly nice feature of SkypeOut, when you make SkypeOut calls, Skype stores or caches the numbers even if they are not part of your Skype Contacts list. The next time you start dialing a SkypeOut number, the portion of the number you dial is matched against your Skype contacts and previously called SkypeOut numbers from the current session. For example, if you start typing the 212 area code, all your 212 numbers pop up to the top of the Contacts list. If you see your SkypeOut number in the displayed list, you can click it and call the number. This is great if you frequently make international calls to the same number. It is a time saver, and you won’t risk making errors when you try to dial a long number.

The price is right

SkypeOut calls vary in price. From at least May 15 through the end of December 2006, SkypeOut calls originating in the U.S. and Canada made to phones in the U.S. and Canada were completely free. As of this writing, we’re hoping that this deal will be extended. Besides this campaign, Skype keeps running other SkypeOut campaigns for different countries, such as Skype Gift Days and others.
Always check Skype.com for current details; there may be a campaign running just for your destination.
When Skype does charge for international calls, the cost is based on a per-minute fee. The most popular destinations have one unified rate, often referred to as the “SkypeOut Global Rate.” As this book was written, the per-minute charge was € 0.017 (euros), which is approximately the same as U.S. $0.021 or £0.012 (pounds). The countries included in the SkypeOut Global Rate are as follows: Argentina (Buenos Aires), Australia, Austria, Belgium, Canada, Canada (mobiles), Chile, China (Beijing, Guanzhou, Shanghai, Shenzhen), China (mobiles), Denmark, Estonia, France, Germany, Greece, Hong Kong, Hong Kong (mobiles), Ireland, Italy, Mexico (Mexico City, Monterrey), Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Poland (Poland, Gdansk, Warsaw), Portugal, Russia (Moscow, St. Petersburg), Singapore, Singapore (mobiles), South Korea, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Taiwan (Taipei), the United Kingdom, the United States (except Alaska and Hawaii) and the United States (for mobile phones). Countries with “mobiles” in the SkypeOut Global Rate are charged the same 2.1 cents a minute that it costs to make a SkypeOut call to a landline. Calls to other countries have different individual rates. You can find these rates on the Skype Web site (www.skype.com).
If your billing address is in the European Union, a value-added tax surcharge may be applied when you buy Skype credit.

Purchasing credit through your Skype application

When you click the My Account panel of the main Skype window, it expands to reveal various links, one of which is Buy Skype Credit. Depending on what Skype services you already have in place, you may see other links, including Voicemail and SkypeIn. To buy Skype credit, follow these steps:

1. Click the Buy Skype Credit link. You should momentarily see a padlock display, signifying that you are securely connecting to the Skype site.
2. Fill in the requested billing information. You are asked to fill out some basic information and method of payment (which can be PayPal, Visa, MasterCard, or other forms of payments, such as a wire transfer).
• Respond to security confirmation: As a security protection, Skype emails a confirmation code and asks you to insert this code in a confirmation email screen.
• Receive feedback for your order: Skype displays a notification that your order is being processed and sends you a confirmation by email.

As mentioned earlier in this chapter, you can buy Skype credit only in increments of $10 at a time and you cannot buy additional Skype credit immediately after a purchase without actually using some of your Skype credit. This limitation is a fraud-protection mechanism designed to prevent computers or hackers from artificially racking up free minutes. After you’ve established yourself as a proper user, you get more power on the system.

Skype user profile: Christel

Christel, a young woman living and working in the French Alps, loves to travel around the world on her vacations. She visits the United States regularly and has made many friends all over the country. She tries to keep up with everyone through email, but prefers direct contact. She also wants to improve her English. She has become a veteran skyper, chatting and conferencing with all her new friends. Many of the people she has befriended during her travels have not quite moved into the information age and are still using plain old telephones, or maybe a cell phone.
Christel decides to purchase some SkypeOut minutes. The cost of a SkypeOut call from France to the United States, to a landline telephone, is about two cents a minute. Calling to a mobile phone is more — about 20 cents a minute. However, using SkypeOut gives Christel some advantages. For example, if she’s calling someone in a mountainous area, cell phone service may be nonexistent or filled with “dead” zones, but the SkypeOut service works fine. Internet telephony has a consistently better voice quality than cell phones. Skyping out to a regular telephone is both inexpensive and clear sounding. It gives Christel flexibility because she can call out from any computer connected to the Internet.
Another advantage to Christel is that she can buy ten dollars’ worth of SkypeOut minutes at a time. Because this is all you can buy until you use some of those minutes, Christel can easily budget her international calls so that she doesn’t incur endless charges; she just uses up her “calling currency” and then decides whether to purchase more immediately or hold off for a while.

Setting up SkypeOut

To buy Skype credit, you need to have two important things in place:

• A Skype password.
• A valid email account: The email account that you supply is the one associated with your Skype Name.

Without these items, you cannot buy Skype credit or make use of services such as SkypeIn or Voicemail.
You can purchase SkypeOut credit while running your Skype application or by going to the Skype Web site (www.skype.com) from your browser. Here, we show you how to do it from your Skype program. Although the process is entirely equivalent, the screens for purchasing credit directly through the Skype application differ from the way they appear if you go directly to the Web site from your browser to purchase credit.

SkypeOut pricing

A PC-to-PC connection over Skype is always free. A PC-to-phone connection entails an extra service (SkypeOut) and may entail a fee for its use. As of this writing, SkypeOut calls made from locations in North America to phones in North America were free from May 15th through December 31st, 2006. You can check the Skype Web site to see whether the free period has been extended. By the way, there is absolutely no registration or signup for the free service. Just get on Skype and use it!
When a fee is attached to a call, you are told what the per-minute charges are before you make the call. To make a call, you must first buy Skype credit. Prepayments are made in $10 increments. The next section explains how to set up your SkypeOut credit.

Understanding SkypeOut

The central concept of SkypeOut is simple. If you’re on Skype, you should have the ability to speak to anyone, whether the person is on a computer attached to the Internet, or on a landline or mobile phone. Also, the process of connecting to someone on a telephone should be just as simple as skyping to a person on another computer. SkypeOut is the service that seamlessly bridges Skype users on the Internet to regular phones. Be aware that Skype is not set up to make emergency calls such as 911. Skype is not a replacement for your ordinary phone and cannot be used for emergency calling.