Experience Skype to the Max: The Essential Guide to the World’s Leading Internet Communications Platform

Introduction

As a child growing up we lived in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, thousands of miles away from our family in Toronto, Ontario. On my father’s $2,000/year salary we rarely made calls back to Toronto. Probably on Christmas Day and only for five minutes at $2 or $3 per minute; each spoken word was valuable but costly. Operators had to place the call. Our phone number had at most five digits. Toward the end of our time there the phone companies built a microwave tower network across the country with towers every 50 to 75 miles. The microwave tower network also brought live broadcasting across the country; we could actually watch the last two periods of NHL games on Saturday night from thousands of miles away.

Fast forward eight years later ...