Skype to the rescue...

Skype, the Internet-calling service that lets you dial for free or nearly free, is growing like crazy, particularly when it comes to international calls.

But, what is Skype exactly?

Put simply, Skype is a peer-to-peer Internet telephony service that is free for Skype-to-Skype calls. The service also allows Skype users to call mobiles and landlines, and vice-versa. Skype has special charge plans for non-Skype-to-Skype calls and lots of features and additional plug ins.

My brother, who is not really a techie guy, told me about Skype over six years ago. Since then, I have saved an average of $500 per month on international calls. Yeah, my phone bills would scare anyone including myself. Now, with Skype, I don't even have a traditional carrier home phone service anymore. Skype has replaced all the high cost non-sense with an easy to use service.

We're bound to get cheaper cell-phone plans in the near future. This is why...

In 2009, Skype accounted for 12% of international calls. That's up from 8% the year before. And Skype's share of the market is only expected to grow.

VoIP services similar to Skype have emerged, but Skype has seen its share of international calling minutes jump to a 50% increase compared to the year before. And as you can expect, 54 billion minutes out of 406 billion in total were accumulated by users calling each other Skype-to-Skype last year. Are you listening, carriers?

The numbers hail from a report published by TeleGeography, a benchmark research service for the international long-distance telephony industry.

TeleGeography says international call volume from telephones has grown at an annual rate of 15 percent over the past 25 years, but that growth has been slowing for the past few years. In the past two years, specifically, international telephone traffic annual growth has reportedly slowed to a mere 8 percent, growing from 376 billion minutes in 2008 to an estimated 406 billion minutes last year.

Skype’s traffic, however, has soared. The international services between Skype users grew 51 percent in 2008, and 63 percent in 2009, to 54 billion minutes.

TeleGeography analyst Stephan Beckert refers to Skype’s estimated volume of traffic as “tremendous” and goes on to say that Skype is now by far the largest provider of cross-border communications in the world.

Recently, Skype Journal reported that the service has seen an all-time record number of concurrent logged on users: 22 million people signed in to Skype at the same time. And I am happy to say, I am one of them.

The Skype revolution is ON and going strong. To join, visit Skype.com.