Mike Wilks' Blog

I’m not sure when they were added but Skype have a whole load of new US Online numbers. These include 212, 917, 718, 646, 378. All of the other New York numbers have been there before albeit not very often but this the first time I have seen 212 numbers. I managed to snag a 212 zone one number which will replace my existing 917.  The 212s do seem to be getting snapped up fast, all of the zone ones have gone since yesterday but there seems to be a good amount of zone twos left.

I have now spend more time looking through the available numbers at various times of day.

There are a few numbers that aren’t there all the time but do appear regularly:

• Beverly Hills numbers (310)
• Washington DC (201)
• Las Vegas (702)
• New York (646, 718)
• In the UK Oxford and Brighton numbers are also available but there aren’t many.
• London (0207 – although there are many more 0208 and 0203)

I have still not seen a 212 or 917 number for New York though and I suspect there aren’t any on Skype. I assume the numbers that appear are people’s Skype Online / SkypeIn numbers expiring and becoming available again so the old ones do get recycled through.

A decent Skype application on the iPhone would be the killer App, bar none. Whilst there is still no official Skype client for the iPhone there are a number of third party applications which have various levels of Skype functionality.
All of the clients out there have two very annoying restrictions which, for me, reduce the proposition of Skype on the iPhone. What’s worse there is nothing even an official iPhone App from Skype can do about them.

1. None of the applications will allow you to make Skype calls over anything other than Wifi. I wonder how much influence the network carriers have had over this apparent Apple imposed restriction.
2. Apps cannot run in the background on the iPhone so even if you are at home or in another place where you have constant wifi you will still miss inbound calls unless you have one of the Apps open at all time. To be honest though if you are at home you may as well have Skype open on your Mac or PC.

The iPhone Skype capable applications I can find include:

• Fring
• IM+ for Skype
• Nimbuzz
• TruPhone

Functionally their coverage is not the same, the table below shows the major differences. IM+ for Skype is not compared here because it works in a different way, described below.

[TABLE=4]

IM+ for Skype is different because it uses a callback model where you enter your mobile number and Skype calls you (at a cost) even for outbound calls. This is the same model as the Skype Mobile Lite products and makes little sense to me. The only use I can see for it is for making international calls where the cost of the Skype mobile call is less than the cost of the international call you want to make. If you are on a subscription then the Skype To Go functionality seems like an easier and cheaper alternative.

Of these clients Truphone seems to have the best call quality, with Fring being very laggy and Nimbuzz being somewhere in between. Right now there is no perfect Skype client for the iPhone, sad but true. I don’t have great hopes for the much hyped (and little officially confirmed) Skype client because of the inherent iPhone restrictions and the fact that their other mobile clients are so restricted.

If you jailbreak your iPhone then things get a little better. There is an application to work around the wifi only restriction as well as one to let you run apps in the background. My iPhone isn’t jailbroken so I am stuck with these restrictions, rumour has it they kill your battery anyway.

Skype has a service where you can rent phone numbers which call your Skype account, nothing new I’d just missed it in the past. Essentially these numbers are normal phone numbers but you can get them in various far flung destinations. This used to be called SkypeIn but is now called Online Number.

Personally I thought there would be loads of information on the web about these numbers, how they worked and what was available but I couldn’t find much. Both Google and Skype’s own forum came up empty so here are a few things I have learned going through this exercise.

Firstly the pricing structure is quite strange. Renting an Online Number costs €50 plus VAT (about £50 including VAT currently) but they are also included in Skype’s monthly subscription plans. In fact the cheapest monthly subscription (unlimited one country calls) at £2.50 (inc VAT) per month includes one of these numbers. The all you can eat international calling plan (£8 a month inc VAT) includes 3. So the learning point here is that you may as well sign up for a subscription if you want one regardless of whether you’ll use the outbound calls or not. This is what I did, I don’t make all that many international calls but it worked out cheaper for me to get a plan rather than just pay for the numbers. You also get Voicemail and a few other features thrown in with the plans.

The second thing I learned is in two halves i) there are various hard to get hold of area codes ii) the numbers Skype offers you changes on a very regular basis. I signed up for the expensive plan because I wanted two numbers, London and New York. The London one was relatively straight-forwards with several 0208 and 0203 numbers available. But when you look a New York things get all together more complicated. Firstly the traditional 212 numbers do not appear to be available even for traditional lines anymore so it seems there is zero chance on Skype. A quick Wiki search found me the list of other New York City Area Codes . Skype seems to offer 347 a lot and 718 sometimes, you just have to check back at different times . The long and short is that I found a 718 number after a few attempts which I was quite happy with, 718 is a NYC Metro Area code covering the boroughs of Bronx, Queens, Staten Island and Brooklyn. As a Mets fan a number with same area code of Citi Field is nice.

That said I really wanted a Manhattan area code number and 646 seems to be the successor to 212. A bit of googling determined that Jet Numbers had 646 numbers for sale for VoIP forwarding  so I figured Skype must have some too.  After a day or so of regular checking I snagged one of these – and regretted jumping on the 718 nuber quite so quickly.I achieved my main aim of a London and Manhattan based inbound Skype number although it would have been good to have used that 3rd number for something else.

In my regular checks I also learned a little about the other types of numbers:

• The prestigious California 310 area code is available but it seems to be pretty rare.
• San Francisco (415) again are available but not very often.
• Washington DC numbers (202) are also on the rare side but I have seen a few.
• I have never seen a Nevada (and hence Las Vegas) number.
• Various countries make you give them additional information or won’t give you a number if you are not a resident. Ireland seemed to be especially restrictive but France and Switzerland also have limits. Hong Kong looked like an interesting option but I don’t know anyone there and I was very suspicious of the additional terms and conditions from the local carrier.