If you have an iPhone with AT&T and you’re not on the lowest rate plan, you could be throwing money away!
Skype has a new app for the iPhone, that works pretty well, and (as you’d expect) lets you make calls using Skype! Skype also offers an unlimited calling plan to Canada and the USA for $3/mo (or even less than this if you prepay).
AT&T’s phone plans provide a lot of night& weekend minutes (5000 or unlimited), but are really stingy on the daytime minutes. I seem to make most of my calls during the day, but I’m also usually in an area with WiFi. So I just downloaded the skype app, switched to the cheapest calling plan ($20 cheaper!). Now, I make my calls during the day on Skype. The sound quality is good — often times better than AT&T! Be sure to set skype up so that your callerid is displayed correctly.
Unfortunately Apple/AT&T have strong-armed Skype into not making calls over 3G. You can, of course, circumvent this restriction via jailbreaking and installing this app. But for me, this is more than enough.
The Skype app has a few significant drawbacks: it doesn’t seem to detect when you move your phone to your head, so for the first few seconds you should be sure your cheek doesn’t hang up the call. Also, I couldn’t get bluetooth to work properly. Otherwise, everything works just fine.
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