Make Unlimited* International Calls for $9.95 Monthly with Skype

Speaking of international communications (see David's recent post about free overseas text-messaging), Skype just announced a plan that offers unlimited international calling to 34 countries for just $9.95 per month. That could save small businesses a small fortune.

For those unfamiliar with it, Skype is a PC-based application that uses voice-over-IP technology to let you make phone calls. (It has other uses, too: Check out this post on using Skype to catch missed voice-mail messages.) You can "Skype" free to other Skype users or pay a few pennies for calls to landlines and cell phones.

The new plan affords landline calls to countries ranging from Australia to Taiwan, with cell-phone calls allowed for Canada, China, Hong Kong, Singapore, and the U.S. Alas, India isn't on the list of included countries, but calls there go for a reasonable 9 cents/minute.

I'm not a Skype user myself, but I have colleagues who swear by it. All you need is a headset (or one of various Skype-compatible handsets) and you can make dirt-cheap, high-quality calls from your PC. Just one caveat: This new "unlimited" plan really isn't. You're actually limited to 10,000 calling minutes per month. Think you can get by on that? [via Gizmodo]