A while back, I was pleased when I heard Skype was allowing free Skype-to-landline calls to/from Canada and the US. However, the stipulation is that it will be free until December 31, 2006. After that, it’s any body’s guess what eBay (who own Skype) will do; continue this bit o’ loveliness or not. Everytime I’ve used it, the experience has been great. The last thing I want is to be sweating, shaking and vomiting due to free long-distance withdrawal if eBay decides to charge for this next year. The scene in Trainspotting when Ewan McGregor’s character is self-detoxing at his parents’ place…that could be me. But it won’t be.
The Gizmo Project has made things interesting by announcing free Gizmo-to-landline calls to/from 60 countries for ever. I’ve had Gizmo installed on my desktop at home for a few months but I’ve never used it since I don’t have anybody in my Gizmo buddy list, and I don’t think it matters. I’ll make it my new [ahem] phone for calling people outside of Kitchener, Waterloo and Cambridge. I’ll even install it on my laptop should I need to call long-distance on the road and don’t want to use up minutes on the ol’ mobile phone. the only gotcha is that unlike Skype, the person with the landline that you wish to call needs to create a Gizmo account first. They don’t actually need the software (which is open-source); just an account. Even for those that don’t have a computer (ex: my aunts and uncles in Timmins), I could simply create an account for them.
