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the rising acceptance of VOIP among college students

I noticed that I am increasingly using other means of communication. Sure I do have an Orange prepaid plan to call my study abroad classmates, but I find that I text a lot more. Part of it is cost. I get 50 text messages for 5 euros while I have 1 hour of talk time for 30-35 euros. That seems to be the case for a lot of European mobile phone plans. Texting is just cheaper than making a phone call despite the fact that receiving a phone call is free. Another part is that we are studying abroad. Sometimes I feel like a pickpocket target whenever I converse in English over the phone. I also get some dirty looks from the French while I’m on the phone in the Metro. Texting allows me to be discreet and blend in with my environment.

There is also the problem of staying in contact with close friends and family back home. I initially bought a international calling card in France because the rates are about 0.10-0.15 Euro per minute for calls to the U.S. This is convenient in the fact that I save a lot more money than using my cell phone to call abroad. However, it’s annoying to put in all those numbers in order to make a phone call. I then realized that I should try to see if Skype works on my personal computer. At first I was worried about voice quality since my internet connection at the dorm is pretty spotty; however, I noticed many students from my study abroad program uses Skype as well. (In my group, around half of the students have Skype accounts.) Considering that it costs less than 0.05 dollars per minute when calling landlines in the U.S., cost seems to be a driving force behind the use of Skype as means to stay in touch. In addition, any call to another Skype user is free.

Even on facebook, people are putting up their Skype IDs and asking in their posts to friends whether he or she has Skype. I did not see this at all last year, but more people are figuring out what Skype is and how VOIP will change their preferences to chat with people live. Of course, this connection is still grounded. They only use Skype when seated at their desks with their laptops, but this is definitely a step towards something new. I suspect that more people are having broadband connections which allows for better connections and voice quality for VOIP. If one has dial-up, it's definitely better to have a mobile phone or a landline for international calls. I'm just waiting for one of my newfound foreign friends to ask me "Do you Skype?"

posted by Koh @ 3:03 PM