newbie skype question

I don't have any trouble making short distance calls with skype.

In fact in order to keep my skype credit alive, as you have to do every 6 months, I often call my home phone across the room from my skype app on my iPhone.

Thanks, Nigel. To be 100 percent sure, one can make local calls in Europe? I know I can make local calls here in Canada where I live via wifi.

We don't use the term local here. I'm in the UK, which, last time I looked, is in Europe. I would have thought that calling across the room would have to be defined as local....

I don't think that skype really cares a lot where you are as long as you have a good internet connection, and doesn't care what phone you call as long as they serve the country...

Skype functions like email, and no matter where you are in the world, flows through your home "server". So there is no such thing as making a local call in Europe. You dial as if you are calling from home in the USA, because that's where your server is. I once called someone in Venice to unlock the door. They were 20 feet from me when I called. Can't get much more local than that. But the call was dialed exactly as if I was calling from my couch in Minneapolis, including country code. I also once called Sydney, Australia from Auckland, New Zealand - again, I had to dial as if I was sitting on my couch at home in Minneapolis.

By the way, if you use it to call someone else in your home city, USA, you will have to include the area code and the "1+" at the beginning because Skype doesn't do "local". Yes, you can make that call, but you have to dial it as if it was "long distance" and you will get charged the $.02/minute or whatever.

Edit: Sorry, didn't notice right away that you were in Canada. Perhaps in Canada "Local" and "Long Distance" have the same number of digits? But in the USA, there is no such thing as Skype 7-digit, "local" calls. All calls are "1+" 10-digit "long distance" calls.

I have used Skype to make calls within Germany and France and it works just fine. When I don't want to buy a sim-card I just use Skype on my iPhone while I'm connected to wifi at my hotel or coffee shop.

Agree with the others -- you can use Skype to call within Europe. One other great feature is that you can make calls to toll-free numbers without using any Skype credit. I discovered this years ago when our flight home to JFK was cancelled due to hurricane sandy, and I spent almost 2 hours on Skype, on hold with the airline, and was surprised to see it hadn't cost a penny. So now I keep toll-free numbers for banks & airlines in my Skype contact list.

Thanks, Charlene, Randy, Kevin, and Nigel. By the way, Nigel, I'm glad the UK is still in Europe for now. Kevin

I set up Skype to call land lines as I think you are referring to. Yes, you can call a local number in Europe using Skype. As far as I know it costs the same as making a local call in the U.S. The rub is you have to dial the list of numbers as if you are calling from the States. I normally get a cell phone there for local calls but use Skype to call home - and like the fact that I can call as if I'm dialing from within the U.S.

Thanks, Brad.