Paul B wrote:

> Why is that something that works 'out of the box' is treated with
> distain

I found the audio quality to be crap, and Skype is a technological dead
end.

When you've used it for a while and think "That's fine, but I want to
use the normal phone handset instead" you have to start again, so why
not start with free SIP services that work just the same as Skype
(software download, runs on PC using audio input/output of soundcard)
then later you can migrate *the same service* to different hardware and
greater functionality without having to start again.

Phil