When Lisa and I arrived last night (after about an hour trying to find the resort in the dark, when it was not well signed, and because of the road construction detour), we realized that even though we had two different cell phone carriers (Sprint and T-Mobile), neither of them had any reception because the resort is so remote.
We had to get in touch with our kids to at least get them our hotel room number, and after making three calls we realized the hotel charge was $2.55 per call + toll + 40 percent mark-up.
Until then, I had heard of Skype, but hadn’t had a reason to use it. For those who don’t know, Skype is like Vonage, except it’s free. It lets you call other Skype users for free, using your computer’s built-in microphone and a broadband internet connection. Calling a U.S. cell phone or land line costs 2.1 cents per minute, and until the end of 2006, even that is free.
With mobile phones having free mobile-to-mobile minutes, pay phones are essentially a thing of the past. I bet most people don’t use hotel phones, either. But if you have a broadband connection in a remote place, Skype works great. Who knows? Maybe I’ll even reduce my monthly cell phone minutes if we can talk on the computer for free.
I know I’ve saved at least $15 with Skype since this morning.
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[...] first experimented with Skype when I stayed at a hotel in central Wisconsin in which there was no cell phone reception. It was a great way to avoid the obscene per-minute [...]