Vincent Oberle’s blog
With call forwarding, avoid roaming charges
Today Skype launched the beta version of Skype 1.4. Call quality is improved in this version, it’s easier to import contact from other applications, you can buy some avatars and ringtones… but the feature I want to highlight here is call forwarding.
With call forwarding, calls made to your Skype name or to a SkypeIn number can be forwarded to another Skype name or a phone number. The feature itself is free, but it you forward a call to a mobile or a landline number, it is the receiver of the call who has to pay at the SkypeOut rate the termination of the call.
We have been testing this internally since some time and he works very well. Especially nice is how fast the connection is made, one doesn’t notice that the call is forwarded.
In Skype 1.4, it is possible to see if a contact has call forwarding activated. The presence icon looks like online but is orange instead of green.
Call forwarding can be specially interesting for travelers. Lets take someone who doesn’t use Skype. He gives his mobile number to his contacts. When traveling abroad, he receives his calls on his mobile and pays the expensive roaming fees, easily 1 Euro per minute for each received call. If the trip lasts a week or more, this can quickly get expensive.
But a Skype user doesn’t give its mobile number to his contacts, but rather his Skype name or his SkypeIn numbers. When traveling abroad, instead of using his home SIM card, he buys a cheap local prepaid card with a local number. Then he forwards his Skype calls to this local number and instead of paying the 1 Euro per minute roaming rate, he would pay the SkypeOut rate (depending on the country, as little as 0.017 Euro per minute).
So that’s a nice sparing!
Now we need a way to easily change the call forwarding settings when not having access to a computer with Skype. Maybe simply by sending a SMS to some number.
September 9th, 2005 11:38
Hmmm… Let’s see - I go to UK. People call me at my Estonian SkypeIn number with local rate - good. Call get’s forwarded to my Estonian mobile that I have with me in UK - good. Call costs = SkypeOut to Estonian mobile (expensive) + roaming cost for taking the call in the UK (very expensive). Am I missing something?
September 9th, 2005 14:02
When in UK you don’t use your Estonian SIM card, but you buy a cheap UK prepaid card that you put in your mobile. Then you set you Skype account to forward calls to this UK number.
When someone calls you on your SkypeIn number, you only pay SkypeOut to mobile in UK for the forwarding to your temporary UK number. SkypeOut to mobile is cheaper than the roaming cost that you would have if people called you on your Estonian mobile number while in UK.
For people calling you on your Estonian SkypeIn number, they don’t see the difference between calling an Estonian SkypeIn and an Estonian mobile number.
September 9th, 2005 14:11
Ok, this makes more sense of course. Could still be cheaper as people will keep calling me on my mobile so I need to forward that to my SkypeIn number and then forward Skype to my temporary UK mobile number. Cheaper still than the roaming costs, that’s true.
July 3rd, 2006 06:26
How I can buy Skype out card In Uk, Reading
September 15th, 2006 16:36
Hi,
The idea is quite clever, thanks. Nevertheless, I have a concern because Skype says that some of their SpypeIn numbers can not be called from abroad (e. g. UK); therefore I can not give my friends abroad aSkypeIn number. The option would thus be to let my friends call my regular land line and, when I am travelling, forward that land line to my SkypeIn number which will be forwarded to the cheap SIM card number I will have bought in the country I am visiting. Do you think it will work?