Skype releases mobile client

Skype for your mobile [via Shodan] beta was released by Skype. This is basically Skype that can be installed on a mobile phone. The mobile phones that are currently supported are from Nokia, Samsung, Motorola and Sony Ericsson. Not all mobile phones from those manufacturers are supported though but the download page is providing images of the supported mobile phones so it’s pretty easy to find out if your phone is currently supported.

Two download options are available. You can either download the Skype for your mobile client directly by using your mobile phone or by downloading it to your computer first and transferring it afterwards to the phone. My Nokia N73 is not currently supported but shown as coming soon which means I cannot try the application yet.

You do get access to your Skype contacts which means you see when a contact is online. Chat is supported as well as calling contacts and other phone numbers. This is in the beta limited to the following countries: Brazil, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Poland, Sweden and UK. Anyone can receive calls however which makes this client useful even if you cannot use it to call others yet.

You pay the normal national or local rate if you want to call Skype contacts and an additional Skype-out fee to your destination. This does only make sense if you make international calls. If you receive calls on your mobile phone with Skype for your mobile installed you pay the Skype-out charge for a mobile call in your country.

Add to those the data rate charges of the phone operator. Skype is giving an example:

A person with 20 contacts, who’s online for 1 hour, IMs for 10 minutes and has a 20 minute call each day will use about 1MB of data per month. The more data you use, the higher your charges may be.

I first thought this was a bit low but then I realized that the phone calls do not seem to use any data.