Happy thus far - Skype Review : Chez Cliff: REI and Other Stuff

Happy thus far - Skype Review

Posted on June 16, 2008 - Filed Under Business |

Instituting Skype and a SkypeIn Number has helped tremendously. It never occurred to me how much my cell was intruding and disrupting my life. Still pegged to a “9 to 5″ desk, each time my cell would ring I’d have to stop whatever it was I was doing (napping, blogging, surfing, youtube watching) and take it outside.

Three cool aspects of Skype

Voice mail management

Each message is recorded, along with the caller ID information. The messages appear as a list, allowing any voice mail to be listened to with a click of the button. No more having to wade through message after message to find that one that’s important. Even if Skype is closed, the caller ID information is still captured.

If I need to keep a message, for whatever reason, it’s permanently on my computer.

Auto Redial

Rare as it is, busy signals still exist. Skype offers the option of continual redialing until the call makes it through. It does it all behinds the scenes, without having dial tones or that ‘beep beep boop boop beep’ dialing. When it finally makes it through, the Skype window pops up front with the person’s voice flowing through my speakers.

Night and Weekend Minutes

Now I can make calls whenever and not have to think “Is this during peak hours or is it night time yet?” Doing research into Verizon, going over during peak hours is 40 cents a minute.

Two aspects of Skype that annoys me

Caller ID

Or lack of. Even though the caller’s information is displayed, mine is not. My number displays as “Unavailable”.

People have become use to looking at their Caller ID to see who is calling. Right now, my number shows up as “Unavailable”. ”Unavailable” is usually reserved for telemarketers, serial killers, psychotic clowns and other people we don’t want to talk to. Now people shove me right into the voice mail bucket.

Doing research on their pitiful website (which I’ll address momentarily), Skype is actually a UK company and Caller ID only works in the UK. Searching for a 3rd party solution produced nothing.

Site Support

Five minutes into searching Skype’s website revealed it is a heavily Windows based support. Mac seemed to be completely ignored except for the “Download for OSX” button. Eventually the Mac support was found, but only after I googled “Caller ID Option Skype Mac”. Lord Google pointed me to the Skype mac website, where they told me it wasn’t possible.

Overall

My primary concern was voice quality. After making approximately 50 phone calls, no longer was quality a concern. Granted a screaming fast internet connection never hurts. But the transmission over the internet can get broken up or choppy due to peak hours of heavy internet usage. But so far, all phone calls have gone out and come through with no problem.