If you make a lot of PC to phone calls using Skype but haven't already signed up for a 12 month unlimited plan, you might want to think about placing an order before May 6th. Because Skype is offering a 25% discount for customers who sign up for unlimited SkypeOut plan between now and then.

The cheapest plan starts at $2.95/month before the discount is applied for calls to landlines and celllphones in the US and Canada. You can also subscribe to a plan that lets you make unlimited calls to landlines in a single country, or an "Unlimited World" plan that lets you make calls to landlines in more than 40 countries for $12.95/month before the discount is applied.

[via GigaOm]

Skype has launched a new beta service that allows businesses using SIP telephone systems to make and receive Skype calls on their regular telephones. No headphone and computer needed.

Skype for SIP beta works a lot like Skype, in that you can call and receive calls from other Skype users for free, and pay Skype rates to make calls to domestic and international land lines or cellphones. Customers can also purchase Skype phone numbers that people can use to call in from traditional phones.

The service is aimed at medium to large sized businesses tht use PBX phone systems with Session Initiation Protocal, or SIP. Because the service hooks right into the PBX, users will be able to use their phone hardware to do things like route calls, engage in conference calls, record calls, and record voicemail.

Nearly two years after acquiring "one telephone for life" service GrandCentral, Google is finally preparing to relaunch the service with new features. GrandCentral has been in private beta for the last two years. Over the next few days Google will be prompting existing beta users to upgrade to Google Voice before rolling out the service to new users in a few weeks.

GrandCentral lets you set up a single phone number that you can give out to anyone. When they call that number, it will ring any phone number you've linked to the account. So you can print a single number on your business card, and people will be able to reach you on your home, work, and cellphones. The service also lets you record phone calls, screen calls, create rules for calls coming from specific numbers, and receive email notifications of voicemail messages.

Google Voice has all those features, plus a few new ones, like the ability to make free calls to US numbers and cheap calls to other numbers, make conference calls, and send, receive, store, and search SMS messages.

You'll also get transcripts of all your voicemail messages. That alone is pretty cool. Google will use an automated method to convert speech to text - a service other companies are charging for. Why? My guess is because Google wants to monetize GrandCentral the same way it has Gmail: With contextually relevant ads that will show up in your sidebar. And in order to determine what ads are relevant, Google needs to translate speech to text.

The company admits that the automated transcripts won't be perfect. But the company has been fine tuning its speech recognition software for the last year or two with the Goog-411 service.

You can find a more complete list of Google Voice features at the Google Voice homepage.

Voice over IP company Skype is known for a couple things. One of them is annoying the #@&! out of telephone companies by offering cheap or free voice and video calls over the internet. But another thing that Skype does well is offer users the ability to communicate across long distances with excellent sound quality (assuming you've got an excellent microphone plugged into your computer).

That's because typically telephones only transfers audio signals in a limited frequency range (from around 400Hz to 3.4kHz.. Skype, on the other hand, uses technology that can transmit audio up to 12kHz, which is higher than most of the frequencies in the human voice. In other words, if you're using decent audio equipment you'll sound like you're in the same room.

The problem is it takes internet bandwidth to deliver that kind of voice quality. Skype uses a codec in Skype 4 for Windows called SILK to deliver high quality audio even over low bandwidth internet connections. And now Skype is making that codec available for other companies to use, with no royalties.

According to the company, SILK users 50% less bandwidth than other codecs. It can be scaled in real-time to adjust to network conditions. So what's in it for Skype? The company wants its codec to be adopted as a standard that could be used in applications, electronic devices, and even phones.

Skype To Go is a service that lets you make cheap phone calls over Skype from a regular phone. Here's how it works. You sign up for a Skype To Go phone number that's linked to your Skype account. You can then dial that number from any phone to initiate a phone call to another phone at the same rates that you would pay if you were using Skype on your computer. In other words, if your mobile carrier charges $.99 per minute to call New Zealand and Skype charges $.02, you can just call a local number and pay the Skype rate.

Skype has been offering this service for a few years, but it was previously part of the Skype Pro plan. Now Skype is making Skype To Go available as a free service for all paying users. OK, I guess that means it's not technically free. But if you already have some credit in your account for making long distance phone calls, you can sign up for a Skype To Go number for no additional cost.

Skype rolled out the gold version of Skype 2.5 for Windows Mobile today. The latest version of Skype's VoIP and chat client for Windows Mobile has been in beta for a few months, and adds improved voice call quality when you're initiating a call from a WiFi connection.

Next up? Skype 3.0. The Skype team isn't ready to release a beta just yet, but one should be ready by March. But an early build of Skype 3.0 for Windows Mobile is being demoed today at Mobile World Congress in Spain. The update will bring support for text messages and file transfers.

Honestly, I'm not that excited about the text message feature. Most mobile phones let you send SMS text messages. And the rates on my current carrier are cheaper than sending a text to a US phone number using Skype, although I suppose this could save me some money if I needed to text someone in Vietnam.

But the mobile file transfer capabilities sound pretty nice. I can imagine snapping a photo with a cameraphone and shooting the image to a friend using Skype on a computer.

If you thought that Skype was a disruptive technology because it allows users to make free or cheap voice and video calls around the world, then you ain't seen nothing yet. Because Gizmo5 just launched OpenSky, a service which lets you connect with Skype from virtually any web browser, computer, or mobile phone,.

Here's how it works. Basically OpenSky creates an alias for every Skype user. So if you want to call Skype user "echo123" (the Skype test call number), all you have to do is dial "echo123@opensky.gizmo5.com" from any SIP aware device. Want to give it a try without installing or purchasing anything? Just visit the GizmoCall web site where you can dial a number from the web using a Flash interface.

Now here's the really cool thing. Once you're signed up for a Gizmo5 account, you can also use any mobile phone to communicate with Skype users. All you have to do is send a text message to 1-941-421-9832 and start the message with the Skype user you want to send a message to. Your SMS message will show up in their chat window. If you want to make a voice call, just enter the recipient's Skype name and leave out the text message. Your phone will ring and once you pick up, you'll be connected for a voice call.

You can make OpenSky calls of up to 5 minutes for free. For $20 a year you can make calls of up to 2 hours.

[via GigaOM]

If you're a Mac-using fan of Skype you'll probably be quite excited about version 2.8 beta of their ubiquitous Voice over IP application. Bringing in a raft of new features, the beta includes the ability to screenshare between machines - a feature not currently available in the Windows version of the client, bucking the trend of features appearing in the Windows client first.

Whilst chatting with Skype out here in San Francisco in the build up to Macworld Expo, they've also announced a new partnership with WiFi specialists Boingo for 'Skype Access'. The feature allows Skype customers to use Boingo hotspots without a Boingo account, and use their Skype credit to pay by the minute for the WiFi access ($0.19 per minute on top of the cost of the call).

Other new features in the Beta include the quick-adding of contacts, contact notes, larger profile photos and chat priorities to help you organise instant-messages. The beta is available now from the Skype website.

The folks behind VoIP application Gizmo have rolled out a new Flash-based application that lets you make calls to other Gizmo users or to telephones using your web browser. You'll still need a Gizmo account to use GizmoCall, but you can call other Gizmo users or 1-800 numbers for free. And you can purchase credit to make calls to land lines or cellphones.

GizmoCall offers decent audio quality, although I did notice a few glitches when making a test call from my browser. The software did a pretty good job of detecting the default microphone plugged into my computer. If you're signed into your account you can also receive calls. That wouldn't be a very useful feature if you had to leave the GizmoCall web page open all day to receive calls, but there's embed code you can use to add the widget to your homepage, blog, or other web site.

Gizmo also offers a desktop client for Windows, Mac, Linux, or Nokia Tablet users. And there's a mobile version that runs on a variety of cellphones including BlackBerry and Windows Mobile devices.

There's a new beta version of Skype available for Windows users. Skype 4 beta 3 looks a lot like Skype 4 beta 2, but it packs a few new features, including:

• Bandwidth manager that should improve call quality
• Full history feature that lets you search and browser past calls and conversations
• Abuse reporting feature that lets you report users you block to Skype
• Support for Microsoft Outlook contacts
• Return of the call quality feedback area

There have also been some visual tweaks. No word on when we'll see these changes rolled out to the Linux or OS X versions of Skype.

The holiday shopping season is upon us, and if you're trying to think up a few good gift ideas for your geeky or not so geeky friends and family, we're here to help. Over the next few days we'll be bringing you a number of suggestions for Download Squad style gifts.

To kick things off, I wanted to talk about a gift idea for the computer user who doesn't really need any new software: subscriptions. Nothing says I love you like a year's worth of unlimited domestic VoIP phone calls, or the security of knowing your files are securely backed up to an offsite storage space. Well, maybe not nothing, but certainly few things. Here are a few ideas for subscription based services you might want to buy for your loved ones. Feel free to add your own ideas or argue with my choice of services in the comments.

Skype

Skype provides a free way for Windows, Mac, and Linux users to make free voice or video calls to one another. But you can also buy credit or monthly subscriptions to make calls to regular telephones. You can also purchase a phone number that people can call to ring you on Skype.

Prices range from a few cents a minute for domestic calls, to $9.95 a month for unlimited international calls. For less than $36 a year you can buy a plan that will allow users to make unlimited domestic calls in the US and Canada. $60 a year will get you a SkypeIn phone number. If you purchase both an unlimited calling plan and a SkypeIn number, the price is even lower. And there are a ton of other options available.

Skype isn't the only game in town. You might also want to check out Gizmo5 or newcomer VoxOx.

VoxOx is one of those applications that does so many things that the easiest way to describe it is by listing some of the tools it can replace: AOL Instant Messenger, ICQ, Jabber, Google Talk, MSN Messenger, whatever email and social networking notifiers you use. In other words, it's like Digsby. But with support for video chat and VoIP calls to telephones. Oh yeah, and VoxOx automatically assigns all new users a phone number which people can dial to reach you on your computer.

VoxOx is currently in beta, with clients available for Windows and OS X. Linux and mobile clients are coming soon. And right now some of the services listed in VoxOx are unavailable. For examle, you can link the client to your Yahoo! Mail account to receive a pop up message every time you get a new email. But when you click the button to do the same thing with Gmail, nothing happens.

One of the most interesting things about VoxOx is the company's business model. You can do text chats with anyone for free. You can make free voice or video calls to anyone using VoxOx. And when you sign up you get 120 minutes of free calls to telephones. You can purchase credit for additional calls, or pay a monthly fee fro unlimited access. But every time you refer a friend to the service you get another 2 hours. And VoxOx will also soon add the ability for users to gain points by watching video ads.

If you're one of the first 500 Download Squad to register using our signup page, you'll get 1200 VoxOx Points which are good for 1200 domestic phone calls minutes of domestic US phone calls. Keep reading to find out how to get your bonus minutes.

Internet telephony service Jaxtr lets you add a widget to your web site that lets visitors contact you over the phone. Now the company is launching a new service that routes telephone calls over the internet whether you're taking the time to click a button on a web site or not.

Here's how it works. When someone views your Jaxtr profile, they can click a "Call Me" button. Jaxtr will then bring up a local phone number they can call. So if you're in the US and the person who wants to call you is in China, they'll get a Chinese phone number. Jaxtr makes the connection over the internet, but once you've got a number, you can use it any time you like. No computer necessary.

You can call other Jaxtr users for free, or purchase credits (called "Jax") which you can use to make cheap long distance calls.

[via VentureBeat]

VoIP provider Skype lets you make PC to PC calls or make calls from your computer to a telephone. But if you live in the US, up until now when you made a call from Skype to a telephone, ther person you were calling wouldn't see your number on the caller ID. They's see some random string of numbers like 000123456.

Skype has now added a Caller ID option that will let you use your SkypeIn phone number or your cellphone number for Caller ID purposes. To activate the feature, just log into your account through the Skype web site, and select Caller ID from the Account menu. If you have a SkypeIn number to receive phone calls, that will automatically be selected as your new ID. If you'd rather use your mobile phone number, just enter the number and Skype will send you an SMS with an activation code. Note that it could take up to 24 hours before the changes take effect.

If you have multiple SkypeIn numbers with different area or country codes, you can also select an option that will automatically display a number that's local to the call destination when available.

Skype has offered a similar Caller ID feature for European customers for a while now.

[via Skype Journal]

WhitePages.com has announced a deal to purchase Snapvine, a company that provides voice applications for social networking sites. WhitePages plans to continue offering Snapvine's current services, including tools for "voice blogging," leaving voice comments on social networking sites, and adding voice comments to photos. But WhitePages also plans to roll out new services, including:

• Free, private voicemail boxes
• Email
• SMS services

Last month WhitePages abandoned plans to buy Jangl, a similar service. The WhitePages web site includes phone numbers for about 180 million people living in the US. Using Snapvine, WhitePages will be able to let individuals replace their phone numbers on the site with personal voicemail boxes or click to call buttons thet lets people reach them via phone without actually giving away their phone number.

[via TechCrunch]