New Skype Subscriptions: The Reality

Yesterday Skype introduced new subscription or calling plan options that provide more flexibility in terms of matching a subscription option to an individual user’s specific needs. In summary:

Ongoing Plans

The previous local country, regional and worldwide calling plans remain in place with three two changes that I have encountered:

• some price increases: for instance, while “Unlimited US and Canada” remains unchanged, “Unlimited North America” and “Unlimited World” have gone up by $1.00/€1.00 per month
• acknowledgment that the Canadian dollar is now close to or at par with the U.S. dollar
  • effectively a cost reduction for C$-denominated purchases
  • in the example below C$=US$ when changing currency
• continuation of the 15% discount for a 12-month subscription
  • not changed; discount applied during the purchase process
  • also 5% discount for a 3-month subscription

New Plans

The new plans offer three new options that have the potential to reduce calling costs for specific user segments:

• select an individual (termination) country from over 170 countries (would be useful for Canadians with family ties back to one specific country outside North America, such as India, Italy or Argentina)
• time caps (for example calling to Spain offers 60, 120, 400 minutes or unlimited per month) that provide reductions from the ad hoc pay-per-minute rates using Skype credits
• addition of time-capped mobile phone subscriptions for individual “caller pays”countries (again with a reduction from the pay-per-minute rates)

Bottom line:

• There are $1.00 or €1.00 increases for some of the previous calling plans
• Choices to be made by the individual:
  • What country(ies) or regions do I want to call?
  • Do I want a “time cap” or unlimited calling?
  • Do I want to call landlines only  or “landlines and mobile”
• When my Unlimited World is renewed later this month:
  • $12 per year increase in basic 12-month cost
  • $23 increase with loss of 15% discount (no change discount applied during purchase process)
    
  • $20 saving due to exchange rate fluctuations
  • it’s still a bargain relative to legacy PSTN long distance charges for calls outside North America

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