UK-2-OZ

I'm not really aware of how the Skype phones work... Do you need to be within range of a hot spot or internet connection or do they work off the telecom towers?

h2oskineil

No you don't need to be in a hot spot. They are always connected via GPRS which is the data side of a mobile phone.

They (the Skype phones) are available from 3 Mobile and they have a Skype button on the phone. Push to connect and it will stay connected and show you as 'on-line' to your friends abroad. You will see when they are online as their colour changes (just like the internet version of Skype) You simply select their name and push to talk. Using GPRS (data) your phone connects and you can talk.
You get 4000 (thousand) free mins per month to use on Skype.

I have made calls driving down the freeway and my Skype buddies cannot believe I am not at my PC in my home. Very good, just do not have many people on Skype to call! :-(

IanJakeCharlieDaddy

we use skype all the time, we even have a skype phone which we pay £3 a month and get a local english number and uunlimitedcall to english landline, so people can call us and it costs them a english land line number. We use the video links for the kids to talk to cousins and grandparents. When we arrived we went into rented and telstra was going to charge us $300 to connect phone and then all the normal charges and as we were only going to be here 6 months it was alot, so we got naked boardband and it has a much faster speed than all the phone companies where offering and its wireless. we love it and all our family and freinds have signed up to it, it has helped with the homesickness. good luck

killamarsh

ooh never thought of that option. hmmmm

Dizzydame

Hi, could you tell me did you buy the phone in Oz or UK, my daughter is going over in 8 weeks and I want her to keep in touch with me thats assuming she will want to

thanks

Dizzy

h2oskineil

Hi Dizzy

http://www.threeskypephone.com.au/ AUSTRALIA

http://www.three.co.uk/personal/prod...kype_phone.omp UK (39.99 GBP on Pay as you go)

I assume they will work when abroad, but check before you purchase.
Neil.

Dizzydame

Neil, thanks very much for that

regards

Dizzy

UK-2-OZ

Neil
Thanks for that it sounds a great idea and a lot cheaper than my $180 a month telstra mobile bill

chris34uk

Hi we use skype on the pc all the time and its great, But we did buy 2 skype mobile phones in the uk thinking they would work here but they dont! so any one coming out is better of waiting and buying one here....

chris

IanJakeCharlieDaddy

Its not a mobile phone it is a dect phone (like a normal digital cordless phone at home, but it plugs into you boardband)it was abut £90 and you can find them on the skype pages. We had it as a leaving present from uk. You just connect it to your skyoe account and away you go. As I said we pay £3 a month to skype for a local english number and unlimted call to uk land lines as not everyone has skype.

The naked boardband is $70 a month up to 24mb with 20g a month download.

h2oskineil

Sorry to disagree... it IS a mobile phone.

Check out the website links to 3 mobile.
Regards

IanJakeCharlieDaddy

Sorry to disagree back but it is a DECT phone. This phone will not work outside the house away from the base site. It is like a normal digital wireless phone that you would have in your house. When you make a call, it gives you the option of making the call by skypeOut or over the normal landline (as it connects into that as well).

Take a look at - http://www.reghardware.co.uk/2007/04...tgear_sph200d/

Yes of course you can get mobile phones as well and I also have a LG Viewty U990 that has the skype application on it as well but (in my experience) the voice quality is not as good as my Netgear phone and with my LG u990 the skype application eats the battery.

I hope that this helps someone out there as this is certainly an excellent solution for us.

Hutch

Yep - no way I'd buy one of those '3' mobiles. On the road I use Skypeout - but we're getting a Linksys phone for the house.

PoppetUK

Hi there,

Can I just clarify something.

You have Australia as your local destination. Do you then pay for the subscription to the world one so that all destinations are charged at the local rate??? Are you charged just for connection when your on your mobile or do you pay per min for the mobile call at the local rate then the pay skype for the cost of a local call.

This looks good and I want to set it up.

I guess if I am not using my mobile to call the UK (I haven't and won't get one of those 3 ones) I could set up a skype uk number so that its just UK costs.

Am I getting the right end of the stick???

IanJakeCharlieDaddy

When you have a SKYPE UK telephone number that only assists people in the UK from dialling you. There are only a limited number of exchanges that you can currently get a skype number on. If you are lucky, this will be a local call for a majority of your callers. At worst, it is still a UK number for them to call and callers can use their bundled minutes from their mobiles to use it for "free".

As for the subscriptions from Skype there are two levels. 1) Unlimited calls to 1 country or 2) Unlimited calls worldwide. These are unlimited to landlines as mobiles are extra. These subscriptions are done on a month by month basis so you can end it when you like.

We live in Oz (obviously) and all of our calls are in the UK. So we have option 1 above which includes the unlimited calls to landlines as well as a UK number and voicemail. We also have the Netgear phone (see earlier post for the URL) which costs about £100 and we brought with us. So this DECT phone is connected to our BB router and acts as a home phone for us to dial the UK and for UK people to dial us (as a uk call). Skype does the rest for us

When you take this option, you can also get the local phone number to dial which allows you to SkypeOut to your chosen destination(s).

I hope that this helps.

NOTE: We have naked DSL and no phone phone line. Skype etc state that they should not be used as a replacement for a landline as you cannot use it for emergency calls. We have mobiles for this.