VOIP and SIP News

With another cold winter setting in t he British are firmly under the weather at the moment.
Unemployment is soaring and so are taxes, while trains are predicted to get even more crowded than usual.

Yet there are reasons to smile as the cost of phone calls continue to get cheaper. VoIP provider Skype is using the UK Internet week festival (which started on November 8) to offer free access to its low-cost call service for as many people as possible.

While there are many technology conferences in America, this is the first to take place in the UK and the tech heavy hitters will all be there including Google and Yahoo.

As part of their access pay-as-you-go, Skype is providing free WiFi access. Normally Skype users have to pay to top up their accounts in order to make calls which are not just between PCs, i.e computer to landline. But right now such calls are free as long as you are in a Skype WiFi hotspot.

This may be part of Skype's bid to attract more users as they look to prepare an initial public offering (IPO). Currently only 8 million users of Skype pay for the service even though there are more than 100 million users worldwide.

There is also good news for Brits who live in the Channel Islands with the roll-out of new fibre-optic broadband.

The Jersey Telecoms Group is investing £11 million on upgrading the Channel Islands infrastructure in order to double the broadband speed over the next couple of years. Fast broadband means better VoIP.

Graeme Millar, the CEO of Jersey Telecoms, said: “We hope to make the Channel Islands a world class telecommunications hub for Europe, which in turn will create new job opportunities and boost the economy of the Islands.”