RIP mobile bills
By
Jane Hoskyn on July 21, 2006 in Skype gadgets.
Today's papers are full of mobile phone companies basking in their massive second-quarter profits. Hate to rain on your parade, chaps, but it might not be long before people get used to making free Skype calls on their mobiles.
Skype launches four WiFi VoIP handsets today, seven months after unveiling the first handset at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. (One of the buildings hosting CES was also playing host to an "adult industry expo". You'd nip out to the loo and find a seven-foot transvestite at the hand-dryer. Vegas is that kind of place.)
That handset was Netgear's WiFi Phone for Skype, pictured above and coming imminently to the Skype Shop. Enter your email address here, and Skype will let you know when the Netgear handsets are in the building.
All three handsets launched today (the others are made by Belkin, Edge-Core and SMC), allow you to make and receive Skype calls anywhere in the world, as long as you're within a WiFi network. The handsets come with Skype embedded, so you don't need a PC - just enter your Skype username and password, and chat away.
Great news for those of us who can't bear to look at our mobile phone bills each month; not such great news for the people who send us those bills. Makes your heart bleed, doesn't it?





Comments
Too bad about the initial cost of these things. It would take a while for my phone bill to go over the cost of these phones. There is no reason to buy one when the initial cost would take so long to make financial sense.
twyford | Friday, Jul 21