One of my wife’s closest friend resides in Texas and she has been there for many years already because she’s married to an American. She comes back to Malaysia once a year during the US summer holidays and my wife would be out with her pretty often to catch up on life. When she’s back in the US, the cheapest way to keep in contact is via phone call from Malaysia to US using Skype. I’ve checked Malaysia’s local telecommunication services such as iTalk, Ring-Ring card, IDD 132 and none of them cost as little as 2.3cents per minute.

The only annoyance is my wife has to turn on the laptop, sign in to Skype and then use a headset with microphone and headphones to have a clearer conversation compared to the built-in mic and speakers on the laptop. Her mobility is very restricted and I started to look for another solution. I found Belkin WiFi Phone for Skype which I thought it’s very convenient because it connects via wifi network and is like a cordless phone except that it cost about $180US.


Then I thought that maybe she could use her existing old Nokia N73 N82 mobile phone to do that by installing a Skype application (if there is one). I referred to the Skype compatible phone models webpage and N73N82 is not listed there. I was about to give up and go ahead to purchase the Belkin wifi phone until I read that I can use the mobile phone to access http://skype.com/m and install the Skype application.

So I turned on my wifi on the router, made the Nokia N73 N82 phone connect to the wifi and open the mobile site of Skype. There’s a Download button and clicking on it instantly downloads the Skype for Nokia N73N82. I also had to press on the Accept button a couple of times to allow Skype to install a few necessary application to run Skype on Nokia phone. Now my wife can use her Nokia N73N82 mobile phone to call her good friend in US using skype via wifi. Do note that if you’re not connected to wifi, your mobile will attempt to connect using 3G which is normally chargeable by the mobile operator.

I guess many new mobile such as iPhone, Blackberry and newer generations of Nokia already comes with Skype application pre-installed. However for people that are still using older version of mobile phone such as my wife with Nokia N73N82 and me with HTC Touch 3G, be informed that you may be able to install Skype mobile by opening the mobile site directly from your phone. If you get the error “Sorry, Skype is unavailable for your mobile. We add new handsets all the time so check back soon”, then you will have to wait for Skype to add support to your phone.

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