(Edited at 13.00 GMT, Nov. 23)

During the past couple of weeks, we’ve been talking to a number of SkypeIn users, asking them to change their London-based 020 7 SkypeIn number. We don’t like doing this any more than those who’ll be losing their number. But we hope this post will help explain why we’ve had to resort to these unpleasant measures.

As you may know, Skype obtains SkypeIn numbers from several telecoms operators. That’s because Skype itself is not a telecommunication company. We make software. So when it comes to things that involve the “plain old telephone system”, we are also someone else’s customers. Mostly, this works out without a hitch. We obtain rights to use the numbers and provide them to our users as a neat, inexpensive way to bridge the telephone-Skype divide through SkypeIn.

Sadly, this simple approach has been hit by a reality check. We spent months in discussions with a telecoms operator to see if we could keep the SkypeIn numbers we rented from them, confident that the issue could be resolved. Hence the somewhat late notice to our users — we never thought things would get this far, given the time and effort put into resolving the situation.

Obviously we know that asking to replace some 020 7 SkypeIn numbers causes our users a lot of grief. To make up for some of this, we’ve given all affected 020 7 SkypeIn users a new SkypeIn number. This number will be free for 12 months along with free voicemail.

We’re very sorry for the trouble and (perfectly justified) swearing that this has caused. Our people are doing their best to make sure that these kinds of unpleasant surprises won’t happen again.

If you have more questions or need help, please send an email to sichange -at- skype.net. Some questions may already have been addressed in the FAQ, so you may want to take a look there as well.