Plans to Allow Internet Calls at Wi-Fi Hot Spots

Internet telephone service edged closer toward the wireless world Tuesday as Skype Technologies and Boingo Wireless Inc. unveiled calling plans that use Boingo’s 18,000 hot spots in 37 nations around the world.

For $8 a month, customers can use their laptops at airports, coffee shops and other Boingo wireless fidelity, or Wi-Fi, public zones to make calls.

And by the end of the year, handset makers such as LG Electronics Inc. and Samsung Electronics Inc., both of South Korea, are expected to be selling phones that can make calls over regular cellular networks and at Wi-Fi hot spots, which are typically much less expensive and even free in some cities.

“Skype and Wi-Fi are two complementary disruptive technologies ... that can bring better and cheaper phone services to everyone,” said Niklas Zennstrom, co-founder of Skype, which is based in Luxembourg.

David Hagan, chief executive of Santa Monica-based Boingo, said no study had shown yet how many people used Internet phone service at hot spots. But as a frequent traveler, he said, he uses it at airports and sees other travelers using it.

Internet phone service at hot spots has always been available to those with so-called soft phones, a headset with a microphone, connected to their laptops. But they typically pay for a full Internet connection. Boingo, for instance, charges $22 a month.

With the new Skype Zones service, which launched Tuesday, travelers would pay $8 a month or $3 for a two-hour access through Boingo for voice service only. Regular Boingo Internet customers won’t have to pay for the voice connection.

Calls using Skype’s basic computer-to-computer service, which bypasses the public telephone network, will remain free. Skype will still charge extra for calls dialed to a regular phone number or received from a regular phone number.

Calls to conventional phones in North America, for instance, cost 1.7 cents a minute, in euros.

About 45 million people worldwide have downloaded Skype’s free software, and about 3 million are connected at any one time, the company said.

Also Tuesday, Samsung and LG announced deals to use a new hybrid wireless technology from Kineto Wireless Inc. to develop mobile phones that can pass a call from a cellular network to a Wi-Fi network without interrupting the connection.

Associated Press was used in compiling this report.