Today I had a conversation with Andy Abramson via Skype. He was traveling on the Heathrow Express (the train that ferries people between Heathrow Airport and London’s Paddington Station), but what made the call very special was that he was using the train’s Wi-Fi service, accessing the network via his new Asus eee PC900, a mini mobile laptop. I was on my Mac Book Pro at home on Skype. None of us used a headset. The quality of the connection was outstanding. There was no echo, the connection was not interrupted and we could hear one another very well. According to this Times article, the backhaul for the network is WiMAX; the network was deployed by T-Mobile UK and Nomad Digital.
This shows that if you have a portable Wi-Fi device such as a laptop, you can make free calls via Skype and the quality of the call is very good. No roaming charges!
