We decided to give voice over ip telephony a go for our day to day telephone calls at home. We’ve been Skype users for a while now (generally I’ve used it for online gaming communication and business calls) and have been very impressed. As I originally intended to use the Skype line for all of my (now defunct) business calls, I set up a Skypeout account to allow us to make calls to landlines and a SkypeIn number to allow us to receive calls from landlines. I even managed to get an 0131 Edinburgh number where the last 4 digits match our current phone number to help smooth the transition somewhat.
Back to the handset though. Up until now though we’ve been disappointed with the lack of availability of cordless Skype phones. Basically this is due to the fact that neither of us wants to necessarily sit next to the p.c. whilst making a call.
Furthermore, we didn’t want to switch over to Skype completely if it meant that the computer had to be on permanently to make calls. After much searching, I give you the Dualphone 3088 which arrived on our doorstep yesterday.
It’s nice to use and so far the call quality has been really good. The only annoying feature is the fact that it displays the Skype username on the phone, much to the annoyance of my wife. Obviously at the time of ettisng up Skype, I hadn’t thought about this eventuality and didn’t choose a particularly appropriate Skype username. Typical of me………
I’ll keep you posted on progress.
on Jan 12th, 2007 at 12:25 pm
With all my family dotted around the world I tried Skype. But the rest of the family couldn’t be bothered to get the software set up…..I have 3 sister who are very un-IT! So in the end I gave up!