Here’s the general process you need to follow to get a Skype account ready for regular phone calls:

1. Go to Skype’s homepage and see what it’s all about.
2. Download the software and install it.
   
3. When you’re done testing the software and making sure it’s setup properly, sign up for Skype Pro.
4. Finally, sign-up for a Skype-in number. Remember, this will be a US number. Any number will do, but I recommend area code 614 (it’s the number right after Ottawa’s 613, and it’s Toronto’s 416 reversed… cool huh?)

The next steps involve setting up VOIP so you can have a Canadian number in your area (so the poor non-Skype users can reach you). Any phone provider will work with this step, but keep in mind that you have a US phone number. If you forward your Bell phone line to your US number, Bell will rape you. You will cry. If you feel like burning your money, I’ll take it instead.

You can however use a very cheap VOIP provider. That will give you access to a local number in your area, and free/cheap long distance so you can forward your calls to your US number. I am currently using ITP (http://www.itp4you.com) as they have a plan that suits my needs for under $10 a month. There is also the Gizmo Project, which is ironically a competitor to Skype (with less features), that can provide you with a local Canadian number for cheap ($36 a year) if you don’t expect a lot of incoming calls. The actual calls that are forwarded would cost an additional 2 cents a minute, but if you receive less than 7 hours of incoming calls per month, it’s cheaper than $10 a month (and has the advantage of being WAY cheaper if you only get 20 minutes of calls one month, 2 hours the next, etc). I’ll be testing this solution shortly when we are forced to get an Ottawa number.

So, once you’ve decided on your VOIP provider, go ahead and sign up for your local Canadian number. When your account is all set up and confirmed, go ahead and set up call forwarding to your new US number (you will need to ask your VOIP provider for help with this step if you can’t figure it out… every VOIP provider is different). Now, when someone calls your local number, it will ring in Skype! We’re almost there! Just one more step!

This is all fine and dandy, but obviously, you don’t want to be stuck next to your computer all the time to take calls. That’s where the fancy new Skype-enabled phones come in. The Netgear SPH200D is a normal looking (actually, a really frickin cool looking) cordless phone that connects to Skype without a computer. And as an extra added bonus, if you went with a VOIP account, or if you’re keeping your main line for backup reasons, you can have BOTH lines on the same phone. If you want to make a Skype call, you dial the number, select Skype, and you’re talking in Skype; If you want to make a normal call, dial the number, select landline, and you’re talking on your regular line. And when people call on either line, the phone rings (even with different tones if you fancy) and automatically switches to the appropriate line when you answer.

One of the coolest features of the phone is the ability to scroll through your contacts and dial without even entering a number, just like on most mobile phones. But perhaps the best feature is that this phone is really well designed. In all honesty, I would pay the $150 for this phone whether it connected to Skype or not. It features a beautiful full color display, nice melodic ring tones, amazing call clarity, DECT 6.0 technology (better than 5.8 Ghz phones) for amazing range and no interference, and allows you to add on up to 4 handsets to spread across the house (which can then be used as intercoms between rooms!). All in all, this is one amazing phone, and paired with the Skype technology, it is a real winner.

So, you’ve set up Skype, you’ve ordered your VOIP, you set up call forwarding, and your new Phone just arrived. What next? Well, you simply plug in the new phone, turn in on, and enter your Skype ID and password. Voila! You now have a fully working regular phone. Call your local number and watch your new phone ring. You’re done!

You may be saying “this sounds too easy… what’s the catch“. Well, the catch is that all this technology is still in its infancy, and due to all the weird workarounds needed for a Canadian number, it can be a little flaky on occasion. In my testing over the past two weeks, I have found that the call quality on Skype is quite good, and in my opinion, far better than VOIP. Skype (the company) uses their own proprietary technology for digitizing and sending your voice over the internet. One advantage Skype seems to have is delay. VOIP setups often have a 1-2 second delay between when you speak and when the person hears you. This can make for a very disjointed conversation. Skype on the other hand is very good at providing low latency communication. And even better is that they compensate for slow network traffic if it happens. It will actually speed up the person’s voice (no, not in a Chipmunks kind of way… pitch remains the same) to catch up with real-time if it detects a delay. However, when receiving a call, you are going through VOIP and into Skype, not bypassing VOIP. So all the delay and call quality issues I mentioned with VOIP are generally still there for incoming calls (though perhaps the Gizmo Project solution will be better). This is generally not an issue because I can just call the person back using the better Skype line instead of VOIP if it is an important call. The final “glitch” in this setup is caller ID. When calling someone else, your caller ID will show up as your US number. Not an issue for people you know, but some people may avoid picking up if they see a US number. Also, when receiving a call, caller ID only sometimes works. This is mostly an issue with VOIP not forwarding the caller’s number properly, so it works intermittently… perhaps a better provider (or the Gizmo Project) would eliminate the problem.

So that’s it! Now go out and set up your Skype accounts. That way we can call each other by name instead of by number.

Andy

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Tags: canada, canadian, future, number, phone, skype, skype-in, telecommunications, voip

This entry was posted on Monday, March 17th, 2008 at 10:13 pm and is filed under Geek. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.