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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hi, this is an awesome cell phone. I really like your post. Thanks.
Can you tell me what is the site to get a free download skype installer to my nokia 5233.
Why don`t you use Nimbuzz on nokia? It has voice support and it`s free.
no matter what method we try, the line is still not clear.. just my opinions..
Hi Raymond, this is a very cool feature. Thanks for pointing it out. I’ve been using Skype a lot for the past few months and now I can’t wait to see how it works on my cell phone!
trust me it the phone doesnt have to be on skypes phone list. just download the app from any other site, and in case for nokia the ovi store and install it. even my nokia 5233 isnt on the list, but i still use skype to voice chat. in other words as long as the platform is supported it works on any phone of that platform. like symbian 3rd or 5th edition.
You can use voip services such as Rynga, cheapvoip etc. Right now their mobile voip clients are available for iOS ans Symbian.
For every 10 Euro recharge in rynga u will get 120 free days to USA and other free countries which includes calling malaysia landlines for free too (which is of course subjected to fair use policy). According to the fair use policy u can make calls up to150 free minutes in 7 days. You can use the 10 Euros to call any other countries and the credit doesnt expire.
A better one out there is cheap voip cheapvoip.com/ Here you can buy “unlimited country” monthly subscription for 3.95$ per month for which you can make 10,000 minutes (>300 hrs) worth of calls to US, Malaysia and other countries that are included in the Unlimited world category in their website.
Hope this helps…..
This blog posting not brought to you by Belkin.
There are better ways to call the states for less… you can use magicjack; $20 for a whole year… or you can use gmail with the call a phone feature; you’ll need a proxy to give you a US ip address…
Sorry, it was a Nokia N82 :P
My bad and I’ve fixed the link.
why don’t you try magic jack , it’s around 40 $ per year , you get a us phone number , you have unlimited calls to the us and Canada , and you can plug a normal phone although you will need a computer to be on .
magicjack.com
strange but last time i checked N73 did not have wifi ?? may be this phone you have is N78 it has wifi. do *#0000# to confirm.
verry old method , nyway nice one :)
I’d like to suggest something much more confortable than holding a phone to your ear: you could connect a bluetooth headset to your laptop and talk via skype with that ;)
Nice post, but i am a bit confused , since when does the N73 have wifi, i just rechecked the specs and nope it aint got wifi, anyways skype is amazing, and even more amazing if you use it on your cellphone………
I am confused… I believe N73 does not have a WIFI… do I get a prize for spotting that? Anyway great recommendation! Thank you!
Please edit the link address!
ttp://skype.com/m
does it have some kind of delay or choppiness? i have a nokia 5800 but the skype program shut’s down after i pick the conection mode(i use wifi). then i tried nimbuzz, but it has a one second delay to USA. I’m from Argentina, and i use a 3.5 mb adsl conection.
Skype is not pre installed in iPhone or blackberry. Surprise to know u arent using any smart phone. Perhaps you can give iPhone a try. You will have a lot of funs with iPhone especially with jailbroken iPhone. Note: I am not referring that you can download cracked apps for free with jailbroken phone. In short, i believe you know iPhone is a very powerful phone. But there are some features/functions that are missing, but with jailbroken phone, you will have Cydia. Cydia is like an app store. But the apps in Cydia have the ability to modify iPhone OS system. Buy an iphone and give it a try.. :)
bad news for those who didn’t know about skype on windows mobile: There will not be another one. They stopped the development of skype for windows mobile. So you can only download the older version from somewhere else, because they stopped the support on this program.
They said it was because they were not capable of giving the same skype experience.
My Nokia N8 says, ” Sorry, Skype Mobile is not available for your phone.” :-(((
Thanks Ray; this is useful. But there is a missing detail: “made the Nokia N73 phone connect to the wifi”, how did you connect to WiFi in N73? via bluetooth?
Thanks for the info. Magic Jack is the best option.
hello raymond your article is nice but there is error in link skype.com/m when you click on link it shows error because its typed wrong and misses h from http it is mispelled as ttp://skype.com/m….
I just bought a discounted Nokia 6700 Slide the other day, let us see if I can use this. Thanks.
N73 doesn’t have wifi
Hello Ray and thanks again
I have a question though, how the heck the skype link would know what “headset” I’m using if I can’t even reach their website??? or instead it means my country isn’t available yet…