Belkin launches Skype phone for India

By siliconindia   |   Monday, 24 August 2009, 21:13 IST   |    4 Comments
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Belkin launches Skype phone for India
Bangalore: Belkin has launched a new Skype phone designed for Indian market. In order for the phone to work, only a wireless router is required (available at a cost of 1500) at home or office. This phone automatically logs in to the Skype account when in a Wi-Fi zone. It also offers free unlimited calls to any other Skype phone globally and 1 per minute for ISD calls to any other mobile number. Other features of the phone include storage capacity of 500 Skype and Skype out contacts. It has call hold/release, call pickup/park, muting, redial and call-timer display functions like in any other phone. It also has high voice clarity. This phone will be very helpful for people who make lot of ISD calls as well as for people who have friends that are always logged in to their Skype account. Even though the Skype Phone has many attractive features, there are many drawbacks as well. The usage of this phone is limited to Wi-Fi zones and the amount of Wi-Fi zones available in India is very less. The phone lacks the ability to work on other VoIP platforms. It has low battery power. Company claims that the phone has a talk time of two hours and standby time of 30 hours but the batteries gets discharged earlier than that. Also, STD calls and local calls are costly as compared to ISD calls. This is the first time Belkin has launched phoning devices in the Indian market and is trying to tap the growing Wi-Fi market. In an effort to attract more users to its new platform, Belkin is offering 30 minutes of free calling to any part of world. The Belkin Skype desktop internet phone has been priced at 7300 and the Wi-Fi phone at 9712.