I signed the FedEx hand held. Slit open the package. There was the label I needed to see: Skype Certified. What a relief. I know Skype serves millions of free minutes every day, but I think an equal number of minutes are wasted by users testing pre-pre-close-to-beta Skype add-ons!

Thanks, IPEVO. IPEVO is a US sub of Taiwan Skype Partner PC Home.

The name means IP every where and helping you evolve your IP experience.

Free.1 is beautiful...

The user manual is in perfect English! Very professional!

Installation and set-up was a dream. Like Skype it just worked. I called my Skype buddy Neil,

“If you didn’t tell me you were testing a new USB phone I do not think I would have noticed you were not on your Plantronics Headset.”

Guess what Neil, ‘Free.1’ has a 16 KHz sampling rate! Many USB phones do not have that because the Skype’s high quality 16 KHz sampling rate is not an industry standard. IPEVO had to design their own chip set. Expensive; but a smart move if you want to be Skype Certified.

Very sharp design. It is more than a USB handset. Yes, I am tethered to my desktop with wires. But Free.1 frees me from my keyboard. Nice With the “S” key I select the Skype Application, scroll down my contacts list using the Scroll key, find Skype Test Call (Echo 123) and then hit the Call button. The test is echo and noise free!

To do a SkypeOut Call I just hit the + key and dial the number.
To send a Voice Mail I use the list key and select the right function key. Dead simple.

Look at this: a call comes in. I hit the hang-up button and it sends a “busy” signal to the caller. I love it.
$29.99. You can’t beat the price.

Skype Certified. Stylish. Functional. A great Christmas gift!

Houston Astrodome's refugee city will be online in the next few hours. There are several telephony needs to meet.

Needed Now:

1. Letting refugees call support services and family. This could be as simple as a bank of VoIP phone booths.
   
2. Letting refugees receive calls in the stadium. More complicated, but doable.
   

1. Pager or mobile phone service at the stadium. As services are committed, families found, you must be able to locate individuals among the thousands.
   
2. Following refugees as they are relocated from the stadium. People in diaspora move across area codes and need numbers that follow the person, not the place. No roaming charges, please.
   
3. Supporting volunteers and staff working in the disaster zones and in refugee service. You want to make them productive. And you want them to stay motivated; many will be away from home for long periods. Free connectivity, telephony, videophony, conferencing, etc.
   

1. Forwarding calls made to sector phone numbers. Redirect calls to washed out home phones to new mobile or voip accounts. This provides business and home continuity amid a diaspora that has torn about homes, workplaces, schools. Crucial for personal and regional economic recovery.