Free Features of Skype

Skype’s free, basic features are as follows:

1. Skype-to-Skype calls: Skype-to-Skype calls are free and always will be for noncommercial calls—regardless of location or duration!
2. Video calls: Skype allows you to see the other person during a voice call if both people have Skype-compatible video cameras and both have enabled this feature in Skype. With Skype video, you can talk face-to-face with someone else regardless of distance, and it won’t cost you a penny!
3. Toll-free calling: Skype users can make free calls to most tollfree numbers, whereas some other Internet telephony providers charge for such calls. As an added bonus, you can even call tollfree numbers in other countries, which is something that regular phones often can’t do!
4. Conference calls: You and up to four other people can conference-call together at the same time. Moreover, during a conference call, participants can also chat together and transfer files to one another (or to all participants) by simply draggingand- dropping files.
5. Call forwarding: Away from your PC, but don’t want to miss any important calls? No problem, just use Skype’s callforwarding feature. Using call forwarding, Skype-to-Skype calls and SkypeIn calls from regular phones can be forwarded to as many as three Skype accounts or regular phone numbers (of course, you can only forward calls to regular phones if you are a SkypeOut subscriber, in which case the call rate appropriate to the call’s destination will apply).
6. Chat: Using Skype’s chat feature you can exchange text messages with another Skype user in real time.
7. Multi-chat:Why limit yourself to one-on-one chat? With Skype’ multi-chat feature you and a bunch of friends, family members, or work colleagues (up to 50 in total) can chat online in real time so that all text messages are seen by all chat participants.
8. Chat emotional icons: Otherwise known as “emoticons,” these small icons can be inserted into text messages during chat sessions so that chat participants can quickly and easily express their emotional state or emotional response to chat activity in real time.
9. File transfer: You can transfer a file to one or more Skype users from within your contacts list at any time or with anyone during an active Skype-to-Skype call or chat session. And you can do all this with little more than a rightclick of your mouse, or by dragging-and-dropping a file.
10. Contact management: Add your own contacts, search Skype contacts, import existing contacts held outside Skype, share your contacts with other Skype users, and group contacts into meaningful categories for convenience and to carry out group-specific tasks, such as conference calls, with a click of the mouse.
11. End-to-end encryption: Skype uses encryption to scramble data so that it is unintelligible to any eavesdropper while it is being transmitted over the Internet. This means that Skype-to-Skype calls are more secure than regular or mobile phone calls! However, calls that use the public telephone network through SkypeOut and SkypeIn are not encrypted—and so are less secure than Skype-to-Skype calls—once outside the Skype network.
12. Privacy controls: Control who can call you, who cannot call you, or who can chat with you.
13. Visibility controls: Using Skype’s online status settings you can control how visible, or invisible, you are on the Skype network.
14. Mood messages: As part of how you are seen by others on the Skype network, you can choose to post a mood message that will be seen when another Skype user clicks on your entry in their contacts list. Mood messages can display any sort of short text message.
15. Skype toolbars: Skype provides productivity-enhancing toolbars for Microsoft Outlook and Internet Explorer that more closely integrate those applications with Skype.
16. Skype buttons: Using Skype buttons, you can add a clickable button to a web page, your e-mail signature, or your blog that allows others to easily interact with you though Skype.
17. Multi-platform support: Skype runs on Windows, Mac OS X, Linux, and Pocket PC. This book focuses on Skype for PCs running Microsoft Windows.
18. Multi-language support: The Skype softphone is available in 27 languages.
19. No spyware, adware, or malware: More of a promise than a feature, this is a commitment by Skype to keep their software free from all other software that might spy on you, pester you with advertising, or otherwise maliciously interfere with your PC.

Advantages of Skype’s P2P Architecture

Like all P2P networks, Skype continues to function well as it grows in size. As more and more users join Skype, they bring with them the processing power, data storage, and networking power needed to accommodate them. This is very different from traditional Internet applications, which require more and more servers and bigger and bigger network data pipes as more users join. In the traditional model of Internet applications adding more users eventually creates the need for more infrastructure, whereas, for a P2P network application such as Skype, additional users bring with them their own solution to growth! Perhaps the most important consequence of Skype’s growing, but self-sustaining, P2P network is that Skype doesn’t have to invest in and maintain large data-processing facilities of its own. This means that Skype can provide its softphone and services at very low or no cost to its users. It also helps explain how Skype can afford to give away free phone calls without going out of business: the simple answer is that it costs Skype nothing to do so—you bring the PC, data storage, and network connection and Skype merely provides a piece of (free) software. That’s why Skype can boast that Skype-to-Skype calls will always be free!

Skype's P2P Architecture

The Skype network can be thought of as a mesh of computers that connect with each other over the Internet. As noted previously, Skype uses what’s known as a P2P architecture, wherein each computer—called a “node”—runs the same software and is treated equally. Some nodes in the network are designated “supernodes” and take on some of the tasks necessary to help organize and manage the network. Even though such nodes are designated “supernodes,” they still run the same software as any regular node, and a node can become a supernode at any time, and vice versa. The important concept to understand is that all the computers in a P2P network run the same software and are treated equally. When you start the Skype softphone running on your PC, it first connects to a Skype login server in order to authenticate you. After you’re authenticated, the network broadcasts your online status—that is, makes your “presence” on the network known to others—and otherwise keeps track of your activities.
When you make a Skype call, Skype first locates the other party on its network, and then attempts to establish a direct link across the Internet between the two computers. By establishing a direct and dedicated link for communication, voice call quality is improved, as there are fewer things in the way to inhibit smooth and continuous data transfer. If a direct link cannot be established, the call is routed via other nodes in the network, but call quality can sometimes suffer as a result. Skype both network and Internet savvy, so it will always do the best it can to ensure the most direct link possible in order to achieve good voice quality for a call.
Skype’s P2P network contains millions of nodes and tens—or perhaps hundreds—of thousands of supernodes. In short, Skype’s network is vast and spans the globe!

Skype's future

Apart from continued improvements in the basic technologies that underpin Skype and the improvements in quality they bring with them, what’s next for Skype? For one thing, new Skype-enabled hardware and Skype-compatible hardware is being introduced. For example, Skypeenabled phones and handhelds are being sold that already have Skype installed, configured, and ready to go right out-of-the-box. We can also count on Skype continuing to add new features and services. But perhaps the biggest impact of Skype will be felt once it becomes truly mobile, in a “connect from anywhere and at any time” sense. Already, some cities in the United States are offering free city-wide WiFi Internet access. For many people, this means that a handheld or other portable wireless device running Skype is a close substitute for a mobile phone; the only difference is that calls on Skype are free (to other Skype users) or at very low rates (for calls to regular and mobile phones)!

Skype Trivias #1

In October 2005, Skype was acquired by eBay, which also owns PayPal. eBay’s goal is to use Skype to enable its buyers and sellers to communicate more effectively and so reduce the “friction” inherent in buying and selling things. Overall, this is good news for Skype and for Skype users. Not only will eBay’s user base be encouraged to use Skype—significantly adding to the number of people already using the program—it gives Skype the backing of an Internet powerhouse that has lots of marketing and financial muscle.

A brief history on Skype

Skype is not the first P2P software to be made widely available via the Internet and to achieve mainstream status. Indeed, the people who founded Skype, Niklas Zennström and Janus Friis, are the same people who created the P2P file sharing program Kazaa, which is the most downloaded (at 363 million as of September 2004) software In the history of the Internet. Skype clearly has something of a\ pedigree.
Skype was founded in 2002, but the domain names Skype.com and Skype.net weren’t registered until April 2003. August 2003 saw the release of the first public beta, or trial, version of the Skype softphone (often also referred to as the Skype client). In June 2004, Skype introduced its first fee-based service, SkypeOut, which enables Skype users to call regular phone numbers all over the world at very low rates (as low as $0.021 per minute). SkypeIn, which is a fee-based service that allows people to call Skype users from regular phones, debuted in March 2005. Skype continues to add new features and services at a rapid pace.

What SKype can Do?

Skype-to-Skype calls are free, as are video calls, chat, and file transfers. So even without becoming a fee-paying Skype subscriber, you can do an awful lot for free!
Skype’s fee-based subscription services enhance Skype so that you can also make calls to, as well as receive calls from, regular and mobile phones. For additional fees, you can add on voicemail, custom ringtones, and other optional services.
Skype’s phenomenal success, in large part, is due to the rich—and growing—feature set you get simply by installing Skype on your computer. Also, Skype has received a good deal of praise for the simplicity of its user interface and its ease of use, which have done much to contribute to its success. The Skype softphone runs in a small window on your PC, with a graphical interface that is surprisingly easy to navigate given the number of features it supports, as the following figure illustrates. As mentioned previously, you can augment Skype’s basic feature set by subscribing to any of the following fee-based services:

• SkypeOut: Make calls to regular and mobile phones.
• SkypeIn: Receive calls from regular and mobile phones.
• Voicemail: Record voice messages from callers.
• Skype Zones: Use all of Skype’s services while traveling.
• Personalise Skype: Add custom ringtones and pictures to the
• Skype softphone.
• Skype Control Panel: Manage Skype subscription services for a group of Skype users (mostly of interest to business users of Skype).

In contrast to many regular and mobile phone plans, which are typically quite inflexible about what features are included with your service plan, with Skype you only have to pay for those features you want. Plus, Skype doesn’t require you to sign any complex or longterm contracts. That’s right: you can cancel anytime—often receiving a refund for unused services. Try that with your phone company or mobile carrier!