p2pnet.net News:- Britain’s Connectotel has announced the launch of a public beta of its new ‘Skype to SMS’ service designed to let Skype users send SMS text messages from within Skype Chat to any GSM mobile phone user.

“We launched our ‘SMS to Skype’ service just three weeks ago and have been very pleased with the positive feedback from Skype users,” says Connectotel spokesman Marcus Williamson. “Now we are adding the next logical progression: ‘Skype to SMS’.”

Skype users start a Chat with the Skype user called smsgateway, then type the following from within the Skype Chat window to send a message:

+number message

The message is transmitted to Connectotel’s ‘Skype to SMS’ gateway system and is passed from there to the GSM network.

‘Skype to SMS’ is available as a beta for users of Skype who have been authorized by Connectotel.

There’s no charge for the SMS messages sent for the duration of the test because Connectotel purchased SMS messages in bulk to get price of less than 3 pence (US$0.6) per message, "so we’re currently paying for the service," the IDG News Service quotes Connectotel technical director, Spencer Gun is quoted as saying.

"What we would like to do is have the billing managed through the existing SkypeOut prepaid service. We’re in talks with Skype about this possibility."

With SkypeOut, users must pay into an account, say Euro 10 (US$13), against which they charge their calls, says PC World, adding that the SkypeOut global rate is 1.7 euro cents per minute, adds IDG.

This entry was posted on Monday, February 28th, 2005 at 3:28 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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