How the Skypephone pays for itself

21/11/2007 at 15:44

It’s been almost a month since I got my Skypephone and it’s been working perfectly. That being the case I thought it was high time I read the manual, and enclosed in the box was a CD with software to connect the phone to my computer. Now I know what you’re thinking… surely I should have read the manual way before now, but who needs one for a device which is so intuitive anyway?

Skypephone modemWell I couldn’t resist sticking the CD into my drive and up popped the software for possibly the biggest benefit of the Skypephone yet. It can be used as a modem for my laptop! Install the software, connect the phone via USB and you get a 115k connection to the Internet, from anywhere in the country that you can get a 3G mobile phone signal.

That to me will save the cost of the Skypephone many times over. I’ve lost count of the number of hotels I’ve stayed in where Internet access was promised, just to find it either to be extortionately priced or non-existent. A case in point is the Copthorne Hotel in Manchester, where Sue and I stayed for the recent eBay University and TameBay birthday party. £20 per 24 hours for Wi-Fi Internet access (but only in the bar area!). So that was a grand total of £80 for two days Internet usage as we both had laptops and needed to check email. I swear I’ll never stay in another Copthorne again!

Well there’ll be no more silly Internet charges for me from now on, with 3 you have an option to pay £1 per megabyte of data with no contract, or even on Pay As You Go you can purchase Internet Add Ons for your Skypephone. The Internet Add On prices are so low as to be almost unbelievable, £5.00 for a month, £2.50 for a week, or just £0.50 per day. Don’t forget that gets you 4,000 free Skype minutes from your Skypephone too.

Yes that’s right, buy a PAYG Skypephone for £49.99, add a £10 top up for 12p/min calls and 12p/text, and use just 50p of your top up on the days you want to use the Internet from your laptop or direct on the Skypephone.

This has to be one of the most cost effective methods available for accessing the Internet when you’re mobile. 50p per day from almost anywhere in the country, like the comfort of my hotel bedroom compared to £20 for Wi-Fi access from a noisy crowded bar in the Copthorne Hotel. There really is no contest and the Skypephone wins hands down.

The one disappointment is that during the installation the software wasn’t XP approved, that might deter some users from installing it. Apart from that it’s a fantastic, extremely cost effective way to access the Internet from a laptop when you’re on the move.