Skype Simplifies Pay Services

January 19th, 2007: Ebay’s Skype has announced new local services for Australia and 23 other countries, with a new global pricing structure for calls to landlines and mobiles.

The company says that the new plan will simplify its communication packages by removing the per-minute charges for SkypeOut calls. Timed rates have been replaced with a monthly charge of €5 (AUD$8.25) and a connection fee of 3.9 euro cents (5.9 cents) per call to landlines.

The subscription service has been dubbed Skype Pro and will include free voice mail as well as a discount on a SkypeIn number which can be used to receive calls to a computer from a landline or mobile.

“People like using Skype to make free calls from one Skype account to another but more and more they are choosing our paid for products,” said Stefan Öberg, General Manager, Skype Telecoms. “This premium package builds on the success we’ve had in North America and the UK with subscription-based calling promotions.”

The company will also be reducing its international per-minute SkypeOut rates by as much as 65 percent.

Skype is rapidly turning into one of the world’s largest telco’s and is working with hardware partners to create many new Skype-certified devices and services, including mobile services to enable roaming use of VoIP technology on smartphones and pocket PCs.

Skype users will of course retain the ability to talk to each other over the internet computer to computer for free.

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