Skype Voicemail Lets VOIP Users Leave Messages
Skype Voicemail was launched this week on the popular VOIP network. Skype Voicemail allows customers to continually maintain their Skype availability while offline by the ability to leave unlimited Voicemail messages for all Skype users when they are unavailable or offline, and can receive Voicemails from any caller. I don’t consider myself a Skype head but use Skype daily for making International calls (and some domestic calls) and was quite thrilled to hear that there is a new voicemail service for the VOIP solution.
Louis Philip of SummitCircle.com did a nice little write up of Skype functions. Philip writes about the world of Skype and maintains one of the largest Skype resource sites on the web : Skype is free, Skype is easy to use and Skype works. All you have to do is download, install and start using it. It is completely painless. If you are like me, you will start using Skype because you want to stop paying for long distance. My mother lives in the Czech Republic. In the Czech Republic it costs a lot of money to call North America. I told her to get Skype, now she calls me all time. Good thing Skype has VoiceMail!
After you get used to paying nothing for long distance, you will begin discovering some of Skype’s other options. As of June, 2005 Skype has the following options:
1) You can get Skype Voicemail for ~19$ a year (that is about ~1.50$ per month)
2) You can call almost any phone number on the planet for 2 cents a minute, half of what Vonage charges! (Skype to Skype calls are free)
3) You can get an incoming phone number for around ~40$ a year (that is only 3.50$ per month and they throw in voicemail for free! Remember, unlike Vonage which gives you a phone number when you agree to pay the 15$-25$ a month, Skype starts you off for free but will only give you a phone number when you start paying them 3.50$ a month. I started off using Skype for free since I was only making Skype to Skype calls at first)
4) You get a bunch of features included for free (conference calling, Caller ID, Call Waiting …)
5) There are tons of add-ons (also know as plug-ins) for Skype, many of them are free. You can get a Skype Answering machine, you can have Skype integrated into Microsoft Outlook or you can even start Podcasting with Skype.
6) There are lots of Skype communities. You can meet people for fun and conversation, you can even meet people to learn new languages.
7) Last, but not least, Skype has instant messaging and file sharing.
Once you get going with Skype you will find that it starts to grow on you. I haven’t replaced my regular phone with Skype, but it has become my second phone line and I use it frequently. At work I use Skype all the time. Since I’m already sitting at my computer it is much more convenient to talk with my team members using Skype than picking up the phone and giving them a call.
