As I've already remarked regarding Dabs.com and Amazon.co.uk, sales of the first wave of Wifi Skype phones have been very strong indeed.

We've already seen moves from manufacturers such as SMC to ensure that these phones can be used with more and more Wifi hotspots outside of the home, and Belkin's announcement last week that their new Wifi phone would include Boingo's software allowing users to automatically authenticate with around 60,000 Wifi hotspots worldwide including US outlets of Starbucks and Kinko's for a flat subscription of $7.95 a month is indeed very welcome.

This obviously broadens out the appeal of Wifi phones considerably. Although you still can't access non-Boingo compatible wifi hotspots which require browser-based authentication (ie any hotspot which isn't in the Boingo database and requires you to physically visit a website and sign in to use it), Boingo's large scale and global coverage and flat rate plan means that suddenly the Belkin device becomes a very viable phone to stick in the pocket of any regular traveller.

Looking at Boingo's website, they seem particularly strong in the US, UK, Germany, Benelux and Portugal (although 3 wifi hotspots in the Virgin Islands is not to be sniffed at). Obviously many business travellers keen to use Skype may prefer to download Skype for mobile and use it on a high-end device such as the HTC Tytn to access Skype via Wifi, but with the Boingo tie-in the Belkin Wifi phone does represent a simple "pack and go" way to make free or very cheap calls via Skype whilst away from home.

It's clear that Boingo see this relationship going way further than this as well. “We believe that adding Boingo’s roaming functionality to our Wi-Fi phone is a market differentiator,” said Chris Andrews, Business Unit Manager, at Belkin. “The ability to leverage the Boingo Embedded Wi-Fi Toolkit’s free open source code enables us to create a product with a compelling set of features without onerous licensing agreements or fees.”

“We expect that VoIP phones will be followed by Wi-Fi enabled mobile phones and other devices that can make use of Wi-Fi bandwidth for applications ranging from text messaging to streaming video, multi-player gaming and others.” Jonathan Mendelson, Boingo director of handset strategy.

 The Belkin Wifi phone is available now from the Skype store in the US for $189.99, or in the UK for £109.99. For a full review, check out Gizmodo's hands-on review here.