Anyone who know me knows that I love Skype! For anyone with broadband and a PC who has long distance friends with a PC, it’s absolutely free long distance. I use it in my work almost daily. I live in California and my employer, Frames Direct, is in Houston. I work from my laptop with a simple microphone (sometimes I go hi-tech with a bluetooth headset) and we have conference calls. Once, my boss was in South Africa, the development team was in Houston, I was in California and another member of the team was in Ohio. It sounded like we were all in the same building talking over a good intercom system. And, it was free!

Skype also offers extremely low cost calling to traditional phones, about half the best traditional long distance plan offers. You can even get your own “SkypeIn” telephone number for about $38 per year, complete with voice mail. This lets those poor souls without Skype call you using a standard phone. I, for instance, got a Houston number. That lets anyone in Houston dial me as though I were a local Houston call. It rings through Skype on my laptop sitting in California and we talk just like any other phone call.

If you don’t have Skype, download it for free and install it. The other services are extra cost, but PC to PC calling is absolutely free. I highly recommend it.