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Comment by snowwindwaves | Hacker News Reader

I wonder why Skype In (Skype Online Number) - where people call a POTS number and get your skype account, isn't available in canada.

What is stopping everyone from making calls from mobile phones over data networks? surely skype is available for iphone and android?

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Thank the CRTC for that, there's a lot of complicated regulations regarding the telecom industry and the requirement for Canadian ownership. Which is ironic because we welcome foreign entities to setup and drill our oil but opening up the telecom industry to foreigners is a big no-no.

Well, how do you get access to the canadian POTS ? You'll need to inter-connect with the telephone network , and likely they won't let skype do that easily.

skype or other voip technologies is an option, but they're often much more incovenient. And I would be surprised if the teloc operators do deep packet inspection to block skype on their network.

Data costs in canada are even higher than voice costs!

skype is only available on some androids and charges calls against your voice minutes.

I had a t-mobile blackberry flip phone in the USA that could make calls over wifi. when it was connected to an access point I could turn off the carrier connection and just use the wifi, but it did still use my minutes and the quality was not good.

Does anyone know if a SIP soft phone app like X-lite and a smartphone that can use a wifi connection to so that at least outgoing calls could be made over data without long distance charges or ridiculous data rates?

Haven't used the iphone/android versions but I use this http://www.3cx.com/VOIP/sip-phone.html on my office PC instead of a 'real' voip phone.

I'm not sure if this is what you're asking about, but the Nokia business-oreinted phones E-series come with SIP capabilites natively (or one can use a third party client). I've used it on my E73.

> Data costs in canada are even higher than voice costs!

Most carriers have introduced a data-only plan, technically specifically to make iPad 3Gs work, that isn't nearly as gouging as the data plans for phones. You can get it set up for an arbitrary SIM card, then put that card into a phone: http://www.wifitalk.ca/iphone/ipad-3g-sim-gives-iphone-data-...

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