Buying a Skype Phone for Travel
Choosing VOIP WIFI Cordless Devices? Pick the Best for Your Business
With a lot of Skype phones on the market, it's hard to pick the right one for regular home and work use. If you travel for business, you need to be even more choosy.
Skype phoning offers incredible savings to business owners. You really feel like you are getting something for nothing, and also putting something "over" on the expensive land line and cell phone companies. Take that, AT&T!
With Skype Pro, for $36 a year you can call anyone in the world, on any Skype phone, mobile phone or land line. And they can call you. It works as a 'regular phone', but it simply routes though your computer using VOIP (Voice Over Internet Protocols). Sound quality reports as top notch by most users. Skype gave away their accounts for free in prior years while they fiddled with the techology.
With a headset you can make and receive calls right at your computer. Buying a Skype phone is even better - these are cordless phones (some with blue tooth technology) that you can walk around with, severing the literal tie to your laptop or desktop. Freedom!
A scan of any tech review website shows a bewildering array of Skype phones to choose from.
A savvy shopper can actually save a lot of money choosing a proper Skype phone made with business travelers in mind:
- Skype Pro Accounts are CHEAP. One bill, each year, $3 a month for all calls, at all times, from any place to anyplace, with unlimited minutes. This is unreal. It's also the wave of the future.
- Downloading Skype is free, BTW, as are computer to computer calls, if you want to test the waters before signing up for an account.
- You get an actual phone number to give out, which won't change when you move. You won't have to reprint your business cards or letterhead.
- For international calling there are only the small connection fees (under a dollar, varies per country). Then minutes are free, as many as you want. Try that with a land line or your mobile.
- You can't really ditch your cell phone yet (Skype phones still need open networks to link to when you are traveling about), but you can certainly cut back on your monthly mobile minutes.
- You can absolutely ditch the land line when you use Skype for your business phone line at home. Get a second Skype line and drop the land line for family use as well. This is big savings.
- You could probably use this technology to call people on the moon, when we eventually have cities there. Intergalactic business potential!
The main ways to set up Skype for traveling are:
- Buy a Skype phone and use it through your laptop or other mobile Internet connection. This will work anywhere your computer will pick up an open WIFI network. The Philips VOIP 080 Skype VOIP Travel Phone is a great bargain at $20, and Amazon users almost uniformly appreciate the quality. There are also blue tooths for some of these phones. The Con - you have to have your laptop up and running, and connected to the Internet. Good for when you are in one place, like a hotel or airpoort, not as good for "on the go" calling.
- Buy a WIFI Skype Phone and connect to any open wireless network directly from the base unit. No laptop needed. No fumbling around. You open the phone and turn it on from your car, rest stop or even while waiting at the Jiffy Lube. The Con - this isn't a $20 purchase like a basic traveler's Skype phone. It's more like $275 for the unit. Still, the purchase is well worthwhile if you travel frequently. International users rave on Amazon about the Panasonic Wi-fi Phone for Skype, for example.
Business Travel agrees a Skype WIFI travel phone is the better investment, especially since free - even city-wide - wireless networks are more common, worldwide, every year. This is the direction phones are going. With a little advance planning, finding free WIFI hot spots is easy and reliable.
Note - Clicking on the pictures below shows the Skype computer window and the International Skype Mobile in all their glory.
