I have friends overseas and plan on using Skype to stay in touch.
-My first question is about the user name. Do you normally use your own name and is this how people look you up?
-How much personal information is used to sign up for the service?
-How do you pay for skype-to-phone calls?
-If calling from the US to a world phone are there any hidden charges for the person receiving the call?
-Any security concerns I need to know about?
-Do I need headphones or will the computer mic/speakers work well enough?
This won’t be relied upon as primary or secondary phone but just the occasional international call. Feel free to volunteer information I haven’t asked for.
You can use any usename you like, and you can also choose to include your real name. People can search for you either by username, full name or email address, so you could just email them the username to allow them to find you.
I’m not quite sure about this one, but I believe it’s name, username, email address and DoB.
PayPal or credit card.
Not that I’m aware of; I call my parents in India on both their mobile phones and landlines, and there have never been any charges on their end. Same to people in the UK and Switzerland. I’m not sure how it works when you pay to recieve calls, like in the US with cell phones.
Nothing more than the standard Internet care with personal information, I’d say.
It depends. I find that the internal mic/speakers tend to cause quite a lot of feedback, but are more comfortable than a headset. It might be a case of testing it out before you leave.