I was watching Geek Brief TV yesterday and Cali talked about a service called Fring. Basiclly what it does is allows you to access your Skype account (as well as Google Talk and MSN Messenger) through any cell phone that has an wi-fi or data connection. I pay 19.99 a month for an unlimited data plan, and I have a phone that is compatible!

So I was looking at Skype to find out more about the Skype-Out and Skype-In costs. As most people know, Skype to Skype calls are free, (anywhere around the world). In the US, you can pay for a year of unlimited Skype-out calling to anyone in the US or Canada for the mere price of 29.95. Getting a Skype-In number, some thing that non-skype users can call, the cost is $12 for 3 months or $38 for a year. So for just under $70 a YEAR I could have unlimited calling, to and from anyone in the states, free calling to any skype users around the world, and when I did have to make international calls, access to very low long distance rates (calls to Lima, Peru are just 3 cents a minute).

So my question (and my quest) becomes this. How can I take advantage of this in my daily life? Well here is where Fring may come in handy. If you have a data plan, or can connect Via wi-fi from your cell phone, you can use Fring to make calls using your skype account. You then do not use any of your minutes. You do still have to have a data plan.

So the question then becomes… Can a service like Skype via Fring, work well enough to replace a regular cell calling plan. And if it does, is there a way to cancel my voice plan and just keep my data plan (the 19.99/month) and then pay for a year of Skype in and out. For a projected yearly cost of (239 + 29.95+ 38) $307, which monthly breaks down to about $26 a month I could save about $40 a month (and have increased my geek factor by about 70%)

Now I did call Cingular last night. I knew this was going to be difficult when the woman who was helping me said “you have to have a voice plan because you use minutes when you use your data plan”… ummmm no. You don’t. Anyway, after much explaining that the data plan I currently have works for everything I need it to work for, and would just like to kill the voice plan, and they put me on hold a few times, they told me that the best they could do (on my first round of negotiations) was to have me on the PDA data plan (yes I know I don’t have a PDA- trust me that was hilarious last night) for $39.99 a month. This would lower my over all monthy bill a month. With this scenario the yearly cost would look more like $548 a year, and $45 a month. I would save about $22 a month.

I am going to do some testing of Skype via Fring, as well as look to see what else may be out there, and see how I like it. Fring is still Beta so it will have its own growing issues, but this could be very cool if it works. I don’t spend a ton of time on the phone anyway. I would miss being able to use Youmail.com though. I have very much enjoyed what you can do with their service.

Anyway, Thanks to Cali Lewis of GeekBrief for putting out a wonderful show and for talking about Fring. It has given me something new to play with.