Downloading and Installing Skype

To download Skype, visit www.skype.com in Microsoft Internet Explorer (IE) and click on the Download menu item at the top of the home page. This displays the Download Skype page. Click on the link for the Windows platform, which takes you to the download page specifically for Skype for Windows. Next, click on the Get it now button, which displays a page with helpful step-by-step instructions. Click on the Download button, which will then display the popup window shown in the following figure. This popup gives you three ways to proceed:
Run, Save, or Cancel. The third option, Cancel, is fairly obvious in that it cancels the download process. Run and Save can both be used to run the Skype setup program, but they do so in different ways, which I explain in the following sections.
Before downloading and installing the Skype softphone, you might want to familiarize yourself with the user interface—the look and feel of the Skype softphone. That way, when you run Skype, you will already know how to do some basic things with it. Check out the screenshots of the Skype softphone at www.skype.com/download/screenshots.html. Also, look at the online user guides for Skype at www.skype.com/help/guides.

Internet Requirement for Skype Connection

Skype can work with a fast dial-up Internet connection over a telephone line in a pinch, but don’t expect much in the way of quality. For practical day-to-day use, you have to have a broadband connection to the Internet, such as that provided through cable or DSL. To get the most out of Skype, there are two characteristics of your broadband Internet connection that you must pay attention to:

• Bandwidth, measured in bits per second, is a measure of the rate at which data can be transmitted over the connection. The higher the bandwidth, the better your Skype experience will be, as your voice will be clearer during a call.
• Latency, measured in milliseconds, is the delay between when

you start speaking during a call and when the person at the other end hears your words. If this delay is too long, say, more than half a second, the other person might start talking back to you before you are done talking. A long latency means that conversations will be stuttering and awkward, as each person runs the risk of talking over the other. The shorter your latency, the better will be your Skype experience.
Most cable and DSL Internet connections are asymmetric in the sense that the rate at which you can send data is different from the rate at which you can receive data. That is, the bandwidth in each direction is asymmetric. Normally the rate at which you can send data is substantially less than the rate at which you can receive data. From Skype’s point of view, the overall quality of a voice call over the Internet will be limited by the minimum of the two bandwidths in either direction: send or receive.
To find out the bandwidth and latency for your Internet connection visit www.numion.com and click on the YourSpeed link, then click on the Quickstart link. This will run a test that will tell you your bandwidth for both send and receive, and tell you the latency for your Internet connection. For a good experience with Skype, you will need a bandwidth of at least 128 Kbps for both send and receive, and a latency less than 500 milliseconds (that is, a latency less than half a second).

Skype Alternatives

Skype isn’t the only Internet-telephony game in town! Even though this book is primarily about Skype, you should also know that there are other Internet-telephony providers that are even cheaper than Skype for some types of call. For example, VoIP Buster offers free calls to regular landline phone numbers in the following countries: Andorra, Australia, Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Canada, Chile, Colombia, Croatia, Cyprus, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Georgia, Greece, Hong Kong, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Latvia, Liechtenstein, Luxembourg, Malaysia, Monaco, Mongolia, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Panama, Peru, Portugal, Puerto Rico, Singapore, Slovenia, South Korea, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Taiwan, Thailand, and Venezuela. In addition, you can even get a free regular dial-in phone number for select countries. Check the VoIP Buster website, www.voipbuster.com, for details and restrictions.
You might also want to check out some of the other alternatives to Skype shown in the following table. This list is by no means exhaustive, but it’s a starting point for you to shop around for the best deal—and best features—in Internet telephony.

Skype’s fee-based features

Briefly, Skype’s fee-based features include the following:

1. SkypeOut: Using SkypeOut, Skype users can call fixed and mobile phones at very low rates—in some cases, as low as 2¢ per minute.
2. SkypeIn: SkypeIn provides a dial-in number that enables regular and mobile phone users to call Skype users. A SkypeIn number—and you can have as many as you want—costs $35 per year, or $12 for 3 months.
3. Voicemail: Skype Voicemail ($6 for 3 months or $18 for a year) is for those times for when you are away from your PC or busy on another call and don’t want to miss any incoming calls. As an added bonus, as a Skype Voicemail subscriber, you can send voicemail messages to other Skype users, even if they aren’t voicemail subscribers themselves!
4. Skype Zones: If you want to use Skype while on the move, this might be for you. Skype Zones gives you access to more than 18,000 wireless Internet access points around the world from which you can make and receive Skype calls. In fact, you can use all the usual features of Skype, including any Skype services (SkypeOut, SkypeIn and Skype Voicemail) to which you have subscribed.
5. Skype Control Panel: Skype Control Panel is targeted at business users of Skype who want to have a central administrator for several accounts, to simplify payment and management of Skype services. This service might also appeal to individuals who maintain several Skype accounts. The Skype Control Panel and other business-oriented features of Skype are not covered in this book, but additional details can be found online at www.skype.biz.
6. Personalise Skype: Using this service you can buy personalized pictures to add some pizzazz to how others see you online and buy custom ringtones that make Skype more pleasant and fun to use.

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!