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Skype mulls new domestic calling plan in 25 nations

The Internet phone service Skype is introducing new domestic calling plans for 25 countries and territories where users will pay a monthly subscription and a connection fee but no per-minute charges.

The monthly fees for the new Skype Pro plans have not yet been finalized, but they were expected to be set at less than 5 euros, or about US$6.50, an executive said on Wednesday.

The per-call connection fee for Skype Pro calls within a given country to a regular phone or mobile device within that same country will be roughly 3.9 euro cents, said Stefan Oberg, general manager for Skype Telecoms.

The connection fee also will be charged on international calls in addition to the per-minute rate for the country dialed.

Skype calls are dialed over a high-speed Internet connection using either a personal computer, a cordless handset configured to communicate directly over a broadband modem, or certain cellphones with Wi-Fi capability. Each user can call other Skype users for free.

The new options were being launched a month after Skype, a subsidiary of eBay Inc, introduced a North American service offering unlimited calls within the US and Canada with no connection or per-minute fees for about US$30 per year -- or less than half as much as Skype Pro appears likely to cost.

The company took a different approach in North America largely due to technical issues that prevented storage of credit card information for monthly recurring charges, Oberg said. The Skype Pro approach is preferable, he said, because consumers are more familiar with paying monthly fees for telephone service and connection charges common in many nations.

The Skype Pro plans also will include free voice mail, a service for which Skype charges 15 euros per year. Subscribers also will be offered an as-yet-undetermined discount on a "SkypeIn" number that can be given out to receive calls from regular and wireless phones. That service currently costs 30 euros per year.

For those not interested in a monthly subscription, Skype said it is also reducing its per-minute domestic rates up to 65 percent, to 1.7 euro cents, for calls within countries including the Czech Republic, Hungary, Israel, Luxembourg, and Malaysia.

Skype Pro is being offered in Australia, Austria, Belgium, Brazil, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hong Kong, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Slovenia, Spain, South Korea, Sweden, Switzerland, Taiwan and the UK.
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