Just got the news, it’s finally OPEN! After months of testing  Skype for Sip is finally available to everybody with a business account! Does it really work? Is it worth the wait? And the price? We’ll definitely find out, we’ll try to get it configured and operational as soon as possible! ;o)

In the meantime I found some interesting info  on this blog:

Skype for SIP connects your company’s phone switch to Skype. SkypeIn and Skype-to-Skype calls come in to your phone system, outbound calls can go over SkypeOut. VoIP people call a connection between your phone system and a phone company a “trunk.” Some people call Skype for SIP “Skype trunking.” SFS is a limited add-on. No emergency dialing: You still need a regular phone service to dial police, fire, ambulance. No phone number portability. You need a Skype Online Number and you don?t get to use an existing number. Service levels aren?t regulated by local or government authorities or guaranteed by Skype. SFS isn?t free. US$ 6.95 per month for each channel, one call at a time per channel. You have to rent an Online Skype phone number for your business. You pay for SkypeOut at published rates. At the moment, the Skype Global Rate is 2.1¢/minute in more than 36 countries. You’ll pay more for mobiles in most places. Unlike SkypeOut for consumers, Skype doesn’t allow or offer flat-rate calling plans. Calls coming in to your phone from the Skype ecosystem are free. Many smart phone systems let you write rules for routing outbound calls. You might choose SkypeOut for international calls or if you haven’t the buying power to negotiate discounts with your phone company. Skype is building a distribution channel. They’ve partnered with PBX makers like ShoreTel, Cisco, and SIPfoundry. Together they have thousands of value added resellers (VARs) who serve local businesses. Those resellers will be eligible to earn affiliate referral commissions from Skype, although a separate program for VARs is not in place. Skype is talking with more PBX makers to make adding a Skype channel a built-in menu option. Skype for SIP is an indirect sales effort. SFS partners with PBX makers, their VARs, to reach IT and telecom departments responsible for configuring telephone systems and buying telephone services. So Skype gets to know your Phone Guy. This gives Skype a beachhead in your company, a relationship to sell more Skype products, and a champion for Skype technology.

Phil Wolff at Skype Journal talked Monday with Skype’s Matthew Jordan about the latest update. Here are the details.

And for those who want to try it out you’ll find more info and links here.

Have fun! ;o)

UPDATE: We made an attempt to make it work a few hours ago, and the first attempt disconnected all our trunks and SIP phones! Since this was on our production PBX (yes, we like to live dangerously) we removed it rather quickly. Our second attempt was on a test PBX at a different location (we like to learn the hard way), no crashes and it registered both ordinary SIP and Skype for SIP trunks. And that was all it did, no calls was able to get through. Unfortunately we were running out of time, but we will continue our little experiment as soon as we have a few minutes available. ;o)

Just found this info, could it be this simple???
The clues are in the documentation; SkypeIn and SkypeOut use G.729 for nearly all calls, so handling calls via those paths requires a G.729 transcoder on the system if the target of the call will not also be using G.729. This is why the Skype For Asterisk license includes licenses for Digium’s G.729 software transcoder as well.

It works! At least when we call out, just have to get a SkypeIn phone number for inbound calls and then we are home free (I hope)! ;o)

Knowledge, Skype