For those of you are not familiar with my history regarding Internet Phone Services, let me tell you why I am so happy that companies are promoting this cost savings service. When Execl Communications (the phone mlm company giant) disappeared a few years ago, I tried very hard to broker a deal between my mlm company and a new start-up Internet Phone Service company, that offered their phone service in bundles; everything for one low monthly price.
I fully believed that this service would make for a great product for any network marketing company, complete with repeat sales. Where you pay one monthly fee and you receive all of your telephone services; complete with unlimited local and long distance. The only equipment you needed was an adapter on your phone cord (which came free with the service). At the time the company was working on a way to bring this service to cell phones. Unlike some Phone Service Providers, with this company you did not need to cancel your current phone service.
With the launch of new Diet Plan currently going on, Head Office feared that bringing on a new product like this at the same time could hurt the success of the Diet Plan. Being a Health and Nutrition Company they made the right choice at the time and passed on the opportunity. This new Internet Phone Company in time folded and the owner went on to join a MLM think tank. I like to think that I helped him discover the power of Network Marketing from the excitement and depth of our discussions.
I do not want to start by automatically assuming everyone knows what Skype is - many people don't. Some of you like myself have heard of Skype prior, but never used it. When my mlm company started to promote it I did a little researching, I found out that Skype had started offering Monthly Subscriptions. I must confess I started to feel a little excited.
Skype is, basically, is a way you can cut phone costs. It's also legal and here to stay. Founded in 2003 and based in Luxembourg. Skype is owned by an investor group led by Silver Lake and which includes eBay Inc, Joltid Limited and Skype founders Niklas Zennström and Janus Friis, the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board and Andreessen Horowitz. Skype had an average of 145 million connected users per month in the fourth quarter of 2010. Skype users made 207 billion minutes of voice and video calls in 2010, approximately 42% of which was video. Skype is not a replacement for your traditional telephone service and cannot be used for emergency calling. Access to an Internet connection is required and a computer/laptop (PC or Mac) or Skype-capable phone or a WiFi-capable cell phone.
What is Skype?
It's an application that allows you to make calls over the Internet. With Skype, you can call from your computer to other Skype users, or you can make calls to traditional landlines or cell phones. Using Skype is typically much cheaper than using landlines, and for international calls, the sound quality is often better.
Best of all, it's portable: You can use the same phone plan to make calls from home, the office and hotels around the world. For very little money. Skype is not new, millions of individuals and businesses use Skype to make free video and voice calls, send instant messages and share files with other Skype users. Everyday, people also use Skype to make low-cost calls to landlines and mobiles. Because Skype is so unbelievably cheap, I've run across lots of people who still consider it some kind of Dark Internet Service, that requires special equipment or technical know-how to get it up and running. This isn't so.
Skype, which routes calls through the Internet, is easy to set up and pretty hassle-free to use. Unlike other Internet Phone Services, it requires no contract or installation; you can set it up yourself. You do need to buy some equipment to use Skype, but none of it is exotic or expensive. And once you're using it, it feels no different from an ordinary phone.
Using Skype with MLM
You can pay for your Skype calls on a per-call basis or through a subscription. I believe that a monthly subscription is the way to go, the best subscriptions to build your business is Unlimited US & Canada for about $3 per month, includingAlaska, Guam, Hawaii, Puerto Rico.
Call any time of day, any day of the week without the need for a long-term contract. You can choose a subscription to call a country that's different from the one you live in. Also, you can make calls using your subscription from any other country - great for when you're travelling.
A fair usage policy does apply, your subscription is subject to a fair usage limit of 10,000 minutes per user per month, with a maximum of 6 hours per day. Also, no more than 50 different numbers in total can be called per day. Once these limits are exceeded Skype will charge normal rates and a connection fee for any additional minutes used.
Skype comes with some really useful free features like Skype-to-Skype calls, video calling and instant messaging (IM). But, when you take out a subscription or purchase a little pay as you go Skype Credit you can do so much more. And the great thing is that you'll save loads of money in the process.