Re-purposed Skype

VoIP blogger extraordinaire Andy Abramson has a fascinating post on his site about a third party work-around for connecting Skype to the PSTN (http://andyabramson.blogs.com/voipwatch/2004/10/personal_skype_.html). This reminds me of some of the IM-to-PSTN solutions we have seen previously (like the BAFO Messenger Call Box), but with the added attraction of Skype's bullet-proof voice codec. There is also another interesting multimedia post from the field, which is probably a pretty good representation of how the world is changing for the telcos(http://andyabramson.blogs.com/voipwatch/2004/10/always_connecte.html). BT Openzone might be making GBP6 from Andy for an hour, but the cellular and fixed line carriers are not seeing one red cent from his prodigious voice traffic. Given the level of roaming charges, the GBP6 for an hour probably seems like money well-spent.