Microsoft officially hangs up on old Skype phones, users fuming

Microsoft has officially decommissioned the Skype-calling support service SkypeKit, leaving some old VOIP handset users on hold. "I have just been royally upset by them," writes Tim Moore, a RTX Skype phone owner in South Devon, in an email to The Register. According to Microsoft, SkypeKit gave internet-connected devices and …

[Bronek Kozicki]

RIP Skype ?

I do not keep Skype open any longer at home PC, because 1) it started displaying ads even though I am paid customer and 2) sometimes its chat window would lag by minutes, making it unusable. On the other hand I've been using SIP since last 3 years (with AA ISP and Panasonic phone) and am no longer tempted by cheap international rates in Skype. I have cheap international rates on my SIP too, and I can use it without being tied to a PC. My only regret is there is no good chat service to replace Skype, but perhaps I will simply setup my own for friends and family. If I actually need it.

I feel a little sorry for the chap who was using Skype for VoIP, but really he should have moved on to proper SIP.

[Captain Scarlet]

Re: RIP Skype ?

I currently use Discord (until they start advertising in the apps) but in theory any IRC server can act as your chat service

[fobobob]

Re: RIP Skype ?

They seem to have relatively recently monetized some additional features (rather than crapping on people by locking existing features/ad-freeness behind subscription fee). Hopefully they continue to take the high road.

[Drtim]

Re: RIP Skype ?

I am the chap. At the time I set everything up, my only internet connection was over a slow 3g link and none of the SIP codecs would work reliably. Skype however did. And it all worked great, cordless phone, landline number, cheap calls and no ads as it was just a phone.

[Bronek Kozicki]

Re: RIP Skype ?

well what can I say ... hope you have better connection now. SIP is the way to go, if you need a regular number.

[uncommon_sense]

R.I.P VoIP CRAP!!!

PSTN or ISDN is the way, if you don't like talking to a lagging Darth Vader...

[g4ugm]

Re: R.I.P VoIP CRAP!!!

Except, that certainly in the UK the backbone is VOIP...

http://www.redcentricplc.com/resources/articles/top-10-things-to-know-about-21cn/

so a PSTN connection is just a VOIP gateway...

[Christian Berger]

Re: RIP Skype ?

"a slow 3g link and none of the SIP codecs would work reliably."

Well as far as I've seen, most wireless carriers detect VoIP and give it a very low priority on 3G networks. I guess they detect small UDP-Packets coming at regular intervalls as the first second or so usually works. However with LTE that works like a charm.

I guess Skype can also use TCP for voice streams. That's a bit harder to detect.

However, if you are on a 3G link, you might as well use that for telephony. WDCMA/UMTS was designed for isochronous streams.

[big_D]

Dualphone

Sounds like it is a problem with the handset manufacturer not informing their customers.

According to the report, Microsoft made it general knowledge that support for devices was being sunset 4 years ago. If the phone manufacturer didn't inform the customer, or the customer didn't look for an alternative in the intervening 4 years, it sounds like they are equally to blame.

If I am informed that a service / device will stop working, I will look for an alternative, before it dies, I don't wait until it stops working and then try and get compensation for lost business.

[Drtim]

Re: Dualphone

"If I am informed that a service / device will stop working, I will look for an alternative, before it dies, I don't wait until it stops working and then try and get compensation for lost business."

So do I, but I wasn't informed.

Microsoft (apparently) stated Skypekit was being discontinued but that date had long passed and my phone still worked so it can't be using Skypekit right? Don't forget, this is an official Skype branded phone, still on sale and listed on the Skype website so it must be ok surely? Why would I think otherwise?

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Dualphone

I gave up on Skype too, for similar reasons.

Now on SIP and very happy.Shame as Skype used to be a good service.....

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Dualphone

no, you WERE informed. You just didn't understand the information.

Microsoft's problem here is that they should have looked at the API logs, built a list of accounts that were still using it, and sent a reminder message that stated "four years ago we told you that we were going to stop supporting the buggy pre-Microsoft peer-to-peer API and you are still using it. Don't be surprised if that old equipment stops without warning, and here is a place you can buy modern equipment"

As for your claim of it being a "Skype branded phone listed for sale on the Skype website" -- the Skype store was shut down in April 2015 so exactly where on the Skype website do you find it listed for sale? They don't have ANY hardware on their site, just software.

[Orv]

Re: Dualphone

As I recall the major "bug" in the peer-to-peer setup was it was very hard to wiretap, and Microsoft was under a lot of pressure from the US government to "fix" that.

[mark l 2]

This is why proprietary protocols rather than using standard such as SIP are sometimes a bad idea. I think Microsoft should at least allow people who have one of these phone to port their phone number over to other VOIP services so they can carry on using that number.

[Vic]

This is why proprietary protocols rather than using standard such as SIP are sometimes a bad idea

Sometimes??

Vic.

[Anne Hunny Mouse]

SIP implementation often isnt standard between Vendors, each having there own variations. Interworking between different systems often leads to missing features and the connection being dumbed down to a wet piece of string.

[Horridbloke]

The usual story

Games For Windows

Tags

Zune

Plays For Sure

Kin

...

Why would anyone NOT run a mile from MS-furnished online services?

[Gerhard Mack]

Re: The usual story

you forgot Sidekick.

[Jakester]

Re: The usual story

... and Bob, but that was a cruel joke from the start

[LittleOldMe]

Re: The usual story

We don't call them Microsucks for nothing.

Microsucks have a very poor reputation for customer service. They were born a software company and are really struggling to become a Service Provider.

I started using Skype before it was a Microsucks product and it was good. I did not discard it when Microsucks bought it, but I did expect the service to get worse. Sure enough it did. I moved to a different VOIP vendor.

You take a big risk when you get Microsucks to provide you a business critical service.

Just my opinion of course :)

[inmypjs]

Anyone who didn't..

ditch skype when Microsoft acquired it deserves what they get.

[calonddraig]

SIP all the way

I use Skype for occasional video chats with customers, as it's still a defecto standard for that (especially with less tech savvy folk). But I'd never dream of using Skype for phone use. Sipgate does all I need, incredibly cheaply.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: a defecto standard...

Best...typo....ever.... ;-)

[uncommon_sense]

Re: a defecto standard...

Best...typo....ever.... ;-)

Belongs in there with conslutant, cow-orker and copro-grammer.

[Wade Burchette]

<< In July 2013, Microsoft announced that it was ending support for the SkypeKit software development kit within 12 months because "it does not deliver a consistent Skype customer experience or support our cross-platform application-development efforts". >>

In other words, SkypeKit provided a reliable customer experience which no longer fits the vision of Microsoft's Skype. Logically, then, it had to go because it was just too good.

[Anonymous Coward]

old skype dropped because of lack of advertising support?

Microsoft did warn old SkyPE users, they used the usual (service mysteriously starts misbehaving after years of reliability) technique like they have with every product they want their customers to upgrade (buy again after they messed with it for no good reason)

IMHO M$ do not agree with the idea of their customers buying a product once, you have to keep buying it over and again or they break it to force you to cough up yet more cash.

[JimboSmith]

Had a Three phone with Skype on Three

It worked brilliantly you could make Skype to Skype calls and freephone number in the US for nothing over the mobile voice network, no data connection needed.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/3_Skypephone_Series

It had messenger and was very useful till Microsoft bought Skype and then they announced they were discontinuing the service for it.

https://support.skype.com/en/faq/FA10976/has-skype-on-3-been-discontinued

"To offer you the best mobile experience possible, we discontinued Skype on 3 from 30 September 2014 and replaced it with our standard versions of Skype...."

The best mobile experience my arse, on any other version it uses data to make calls and therefore not free! The phone was only £20 (and saved me a small fortune) so didn't lose out financially but the pain of not having it working was immense.

[bazza]

Re: Had a Three phone with Skype on Three

The only reason why I went to Three in the first place was Skype

[Anonymous South African Coward]

Yo Telegram and Whatsapp! Open market segment!

[bazza]

What, replace one proprietary standard with two different proprietary standards?!?!

To be honest I don't know if Telegram or WhatsApp offerings are open standards compliant, but in this day and age of OTT walled gardens I'm not getting my hopes up...

[Random Handle]

>Yo Telegram and Whatsapp! Open market segment!

...if the well known 'camera company' Snapchat only had a brain.

[Anonymous Coward]

Nadella's efforts to undermine any credibility left going on well...

....having Skype better supported on iOS and Android than on Windows Phone is a real gem.

Does he really believe people will switch to another MS product? Hastening people to move to Apple or Google doesn't look a smart move to me.

[Captain Scarlet]

Re: Nadella's efforts to undermine any credibility left going on well...

Their problem is people already have abandoned or ignored Windows Phone.

We haven't been able to buy cheap Windows phones via our operator for about half a year, which is a shame as for work they do exactly what is needed.

[Steve Davies 3]

Re: Nadella's efforts to undermine any credibility left going on well...

Their problem is people already have abandoned or ignored Windows Phone.

The problem is that inside Redmond there are a lot of people who have nailed their colours (viz balls) to the Windows 10 Mobile mast. They are in positions if influence so until:- 1) They die, 2) they leave or 3) Satnad is replaced and the new emperor gets new clothes, sod all is going to change.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Nadella's efforts to undermine any credibility left going on well...

If MS had desupported XP so quickly while Vista failed, to push people towards the latter, it may not have had time to regain control and some trust with 7.

Window 10 mobile mast looks to be on a ship without sails and wheel, in the middle of a big ocean - why should one join aboard? Especially when some people are thrown off board just because - and those in charge will tweet from their iPhones about that...

[uncommon_sense]

Re: Nadella's efforts to undermine any credibility left going on well...

They are in positions if influence so until:- 1) They die, 2) they leave or 3) Satnad is replaced and the new emperor gets new clothes, sod all is going to change.<<<

True, same with Apple and Kook

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Nadella's efforts to undermine any credibility left going on well...

Apples problem is that their products is suffering from a very expensive form of anorexia, lacking serviceability and upgradeability. Cook and Ive are running that company into the ground!

Sent from my Mac

[Cobug]

"where he bought his Dualphone about a year ago"

Why would anyone buy kit that's already been announced is going to be unsupported? It's not like there aren't perfectly good alternatives.

[jelabarre59]

Re: "where he bought his Dualphone about a year ago"

Why would anyone buy kit that's already been announced is going to be unsupported? It's not like there aren't perfectly good alternatives.

Are you kidding? Netgear is **STILL** selling the NeoTV Prime, which runs the long-abandoned GoogleTV system (yes, not AndroidTV). Look at https://www.netgear.com/landing/stream/tv/#googletv

[Hans 1]

Never count on MS

Simples.

Windows Phone, Windows RT, zune, bob, you name it ... if they feel like "discontinuing" it, they will.

Don't trust Microsoft ... NEVER ! Hello, anybody in ?

Been bitten ? Wait, I am am trying hard to give a fsck ... I cannot ... YOUR OWN DAMN FAULT!

Do no trust Microsoft, never, they will shaft you like they have shafted:

IBM

Apple

Caldera

IBM

Sybase

Borland

Novell

SGI

Suse

Sun

.... you name it ...

Note: many more missing, the order might not be correct, only from the top of my head. No, I do not care, my main point is: NEVER, EVER, EVER, EVER, NO REALLY, TRUST MICROSOFT!

[JimC]

Re: Never count on MS

Fair comment, but which tech supplier would you suggest counting on?

[Steve Aubrey]

Re: Never count on MS

JimC - that's a trick question. It presumes there is an answer, but that is still unproven.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Never count on MS

ARM and build your own

[P. Lee]

Re: Never count on MS

>Fair comment, but which tech supplier would you suggest counting on?

IETF

[John Brown (no body)]

Re: Never count on MS

"Windows Phone, Windows RT, zune, bob, you name it ... if they feel like "discontinuing" it, they will."

At least Google have the good grace to label everything as Beta!

[llaryllama]

That's more than I got

A few years back I was using Skype for Business in Taiwan with multiple SIP lines and landline numbers in various countries hooked up to our Asterisk PBX. We spent a fair amount of money on Skype each month and it was actually a pretty nice solution because we could allocate credit individually to staff who needed it and the latency/general performance was extremely good.

At some point Skype made a deal with some local Taiwanese company to handle all the sales and business, except in this case there was zero warning. Since we were logging in from Taiwan IP addresses Skype would not deal with us direct and insisted we go through the local company, except the local company had no way to handle automatic billing for credit and nobody knew how to add credit to a business SIP account. So we basically had to abandon Skype overnight because of some dumb ass business deal, and it took a while to find SIP trunking providers that could offer the same kind of functionality.

We had about 150 EUR of credit left on the account that was now useless and eventually gave up trying to get it back. Bunch of twunts.

[Anonymous Coward]

There's going to be literally a couple of angry posts on Microsoft's website come 1st July.

[supertrooper2]

<< In July 2013, Microsoft announced that it was ending support for the SkypeKit software development kit within 12 months because "it does not deliver a consistent Skype customer experience or support our cross-platform application-development efforts". >>

Why did Skype continued to sell RTX Dualphone 4088 on its website after this "so-called" announcement by Microsoft?

I never saw the announcement and would not have realized that "SkypeKit" software had anything to do with the Dualphones, which I bought from Skype quite recently.

Why were we not informed by Skype that "End of Service" was coming?

Pulling the plug in this way on thousands of Dualphone users is an absolute DISGRACE!

[GingerOne]

I've got an old Netgear WiFi Skype phone somewhere. Keep thinking I should chuck it on eBay or Freecycle but I guess its just a paperwieght now...

[JulieM]

The Lessons of Baltimore, 1904 have not been learned

It seems that nobody has bothered to learn a word from the Great Fire of Baltimore in 1904, a full 113 years ago now; when the city's fire brigade was overwhelmed, and firefighters from neighbouring brigades were unable to couple their hoses to the Baltimore hydrants, with .

We need a law saying that proprietary standards can never simply be abandoned; they must be supported forever, or else sufficient information released to the Public Domain to permit third parties to provide their own independent support, with a seamless switchover, after the original vendor's support has ceased.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: The Lessons of Baltimore, 1904 have not been learned

I'm not sure about the "support forever"... but keeping things up on an open system helps somewhat.

Computing does so well because it is *general* computing and a turing machine (so in principle any complete turing machine can emulate another). So as long as you keep to a low standard of workload on the computer, you just have time as the differentiating factor (slower computers run slower ;) ).

However lots of newer devices are built for consumption, thus have no method of reprogramming or emulation. Even this month Apple is dropping 32bit support on iOS. I think I'd just throw up my arms and move out to the back of beyond, get a fishing rod and a canoe, and say goodbye if they ever dropped 32bit from PC/Linux/Windows in the next 5-10 years! But on phones it's shrugged off as "progress" (by cutting off your nose!).

I don't expect my Chromecast to play Betamax, however remotely "bricking" a working device means I almost never buy a "proprietary" device (have Android, as unlike iOS flashing to custom roms is possible should Google decide to pull the plug, I have Windows/Linux, though hackintosh is now more viable. I don't have consoles as they can remove features/compatibility at a whim etc, etc).

[Dan 55]

Re: The Lessons of Baltimore, 1904 have not been learned

Ubuntu and SUSE dropped 32-bit last year and Arch at the start of this year...

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: The Lessons of Baltimore, 1904 have not been learned

I'll avoid the "they THINK they know best" answer, and instead assume both old versions are available (and alternatives) for 32bit and emulation/packages as options?

Try that in iOS and most phones. I think at least iOS does not nagg you to update as Samsung/Android does (which caused an accidental update as the box popped up while I was doing other things!).

So there is more an option with Linux, less so with proprietary hardware/software (Win10 springs to mind).

[dajames]

Re: The Lessons of Baltimore, 1904 have not been learned

Ubuntu and SUSE dropped 32-bit last year and Arch at the start of this year...

This is incorrect. 32-bit versions of the latest releases of all three of these distros are still available.

You may be thinking of support for older members of the x86 family lacking support for some SIMD instructions or PAE (which almost certainly also lack 64-bit support).

[JulieM]

Re: The Lessons of Baltimore, 1904 have not been learned

I'm not sure about the "support forever"... but keeping things up on an open system helps somewhat.

If they don't want to support a product forever, they can pass on the torch for third parties to support it. But what they can't do, under such a system, is leave software unsupported and users up a certain well-known waterway minus an important propulsion implement.

[jmcc]

Re: The Lessons of Baltimore, 1904 have not been learned

Re Great Fire of Baltimore . Have you been to San Francisco recently? Most of the fire-hydrants have different connectors from all the surrounding cities. So no mutual aid in a big disaster.

Its not like San Francisco does not have major natural disasters where large chunks of the city burn down or anything.

http://www.sfgate.com/news/article/HOSED-S-F-hydrants-don-t-fit-equipment-from-2568046.php

The only reason a chunk of the city did not burn down in 1989 is because even though the city had sold off all the fireboats the last one had not been picked up yet by the people who bought it. So when all the fire hydrants failed they could still pump water from the Bay to put of the fires before they burned down the Marina. Although given the type of people who live in the Marina it would have been no great loss.

[fobobob]

Punching out!

I ejected from Skype as soon as 6.26 (the last version where you could fit more than two messages on the screen at a time /s) became unable to log in. I just don't understand the appeal of software that comprises 98% blank space.

[anthonyhegedus]

I tried skype again the other day and found that it's convoluted in its approach to contacts. My colleague could not find me on skype. It was difficult to work out what my user name was. Gave up. Like everything MS do, it turns to shit.

What annoys me is that Microsoft could have kept those phones going. It's just that now even more people detest that hateful company.

There's a reason people google for stuff and don't bing for it instead.

[razorfishsl]

They don't want those phones running, it does not fit in with their business plans.

The same way they modified office to deliberately destroy office documents on osx in an attempt to force people to use onedrive,

and the same way they deliberately cripple osx skype for business to prevent contacting non-business users.

[James O'Shea]

tell me more

"The same way they modified office to deliberately destroy office documents on osx in an attempt to force people to use onedrive,"

exactly how does office on OS X 'destroy' documents? I have several _thousand_ office documents (Word, Excel, Powerpoint) some of which started out a _long_ time ago, and I use Dropbox to move stuff between various machines (two Macs, three Windows systems, mostly) and none of them have been 'destroyed', so I'd really like to know what I'm doing wrong.

[Anonymous Coward]

Work out your username?

I still cannot remember if mine is locked to Facebook or Hotmail or some other broken system. As I had to Google the solution, and found out I fell into some sort of gap between reality and an API/account system that is no longer in use...

Do they want my profile name, username, screen nickname, chosen login account, email account, microsoft account, facebook account, hotmail account, backup email contact, Xbox account, live account... I think I just gave up in the end (but still logged in on the phone :P ).

[Michael Kean]

How long before Duo is killed too?

Google likes to randomly kill things. I've moved from Skype to Duo because call quality is much better; but I guess it's shaky ground too. Oh well, nothing lasts for ever. Good thing mobile phone numbers and email addresses stay put as the technology changes around them. (GSM, 3G, 4G, 5G, POP, HTTP, IMAP, etc.)

[P. Lee]

Re: How long before Duo is killed too?

>Good thing mobile phone numbers and email addresses stay put as the technology changes around them. (GSM, 3G, 4G, 5G, POP, HTTP, IMAP, etc.)

Which is why standard interfaces are important, no matter what the tech behind them and why I loath the cloud regardless of which OS it is built on.

Cloud replaces things like SATA with onedrive or S3. You then have a proprietary disk drive. That is one of the stupidest ideas I can imagine - vendor-specific data where the hardware is controlled by not-you but by a really reliable long-term organisation like ... a cloud company. I mean it isn't like MS have form for removing support for other vendors' stuff, like, say, HPFS under Windows... leaving Office to rot under OSX... removing third-party support to kill Novell logins...

[Anonymous Coward]

Embrace, Extend, .....

[Anonymous Coward]

It is not an software vendors responsibility to endlessly support OEM who create unofficial product.

And seriously. Who the F is using a 5+ year old Skype handset as their business line?? Amateur hour.

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm other news, Skype for Business which is not actually Skype but is some Microsoft rebranded Lync product is also a completely crippled feature challenged useless bag of shit. Is anyone surprised

[Anonymous Coward]

SatNad the cloud whore destroying P2P which made Skype great, for a 'cloud-based infrastructure'...

How very surprising indeed! /s

Those of you on mobile, try JusTalk. It's also available for iOS, excellent if you want to video call your Android mates but can't Facetime them. It uses your phone number, no need to sign up for an additional account e.g. a Microsoft account.

Oh, and if you haven't got the message already: boycott Skype. And other Microsoft offerings, wherever possible.

https://justalk.com/

[Hunterman]

Re. Skype-phone support withdrawal by Microsoft, this is simply typical corporate American strategy based upon arrogance and vindictive spitefulness: "Because we didn't think of it/invent it, let's buy out this third-party product originally developed by independent developers, asset-strip the code then embark on a programme of strategic 'upgrades' that in reality are simply designed to hog-tie our global customer base into an endless life-cycle of hardware upgrades driven by OS upgrades that in turn become out-dated by the increasing demands of hardware".

This exemplifies why the rest of the planet is starting to dislike everything the United States of America; self-centred greed with neither thought nor care for the consequences on others of its actions.

[Anonymous Coward]

" this is simply typical corporate American strategy "

Still, fully devised by a non-American CEO... <G>

[Telecide]

smart TV

So from early July my Panasonic TV will be that bit dumber and the £200 TY-CC20W webcam designed specifically for use with Skype obsolete. Can't find a workaround as yet other than reverting to PC or tablet. So much for the future.....

[pjlavelle]

Re: smart TV

Me too I have a Panasonic TV with the TY-CC20W webcam. Worse, all the family made an investment in this stuff, so we WERE able to have very long chats in family and even to have transAtlantic meals together, dinner for some and supper for the others. Of course calling a friend through the TV was very cool and lots of them asked how we were doing it, and also bought their own. Few of us are computer-able, the others either don't care or don't want to care. The system worked beautifully with elders and children, both easily using only the TV remote control. Now, to have the same facility, one should start a PC hooked to the network and the TV to use the large screen. But there is no decent place for the PC in the main room. Some don't have a spare PC or laptop to leave hooked to the TV. Elders can't do it and children..... are children. And there is no more TVs with supported webcams to buy. 21 century sucks, get me back to the 20. I fully understand that the essential reason to stop support is the difficulty to wiretap conversations. Big Brother IS watching you.

[Captain Badmouth]

American railroads

in Los Angeles suffered a similar fate at the hands of the car companies.

[wayward4now]

Ubuntu has telegram-desktop

...ready to install from the repos. Ergo, open source. Screw Microsoft.

[Nimby]

leaving some old VOIP handset users on hold

I am one such user and let us say that I am less than thrilled. I have been using Skype as my landline for years, with a dedicated phone number, because I get tired of my phone number changing every time I move. It was so convenient to plug my real landline into the same phone that ran Skype so both numbers were on one device and I my number stayed the same for all friends, family, and even business.

I am especially annoyed as while I got an email notifying me that Windows Phone would lose Skype service (as if I have a Windows phone), I never received notification that my Skype "landline" phone would stop working.

So now I wonder two things:

1. If I don't find an alternative, why would I bother continuing to pay Skype for a service I can no longer use?

2. I wonder how hard it would be to build a new Skype "landline" phone out of a Raspberry Pi + Android...

[glnz]

Just discovered this. What should I do to replace the plastic phone+FreeTalk set-up in my wife's mini-office that worked great with its Skype-in number?

On an emergency basis, should we be running Skype at startup on the Win 7 Pro computer? Will it receive our customer's calls to our Skype-in number? Will the PC actually ring? Is there anything I can connect to that PC that we can pick up and answer like the phone?

Agree with all the complaints here against MS, but am desperate for fast practical advice to be able to answer our incoming Skype-in calls!!

Thanks.

[glnz]

Responding to my own post - I've moved our mini-office and white plastic phone to Google Voice.

Disconnected the ConnectMe FreeTalk for Skype and got an OBi200 for Google Voice.

I'll continue to pay Skype $3/month to continue our Skype-in number, which our customers have. In Skype, I've set it to forward to our new Google Voice number to which the white plastic phone is now connected. Seems to be working.

But I certainly hope MS ends up writing off its $8+ Billion investment in Skype.

[UndergroundMan]

I realised last night that the RTX Dualphone 4088 no longer works. The device shows as offline and refuses to connect. I live overseas and bought one for myself and one for my parents so we can talk for free. They're older so this phone is ideal compared to a fiddly smartphone that they can't work with. Microsoft/Skype have blown our means of communication out of the water.

Though Microsoft/Skype announced the death of SkypeKit, it's far from clear on the Skype website that it would affect the 4088. I mean... I never thought of it as a Skype "landline" phone because it doesn't use a landline, it only connects via wifi.

Amazon have kindly offered a refund. As of ~10am, the phone now lists as unavailable so at least new buyers won't be duped. I contacted the seller, who responded that they too hadn't anticipated the service termination. Saying I'm disappointed in Skype's (aka Microsoft's) handling of this is an understatement.

[psychonaut]

dave barnett from Tring!

Poor Dave Barnett who hails from Tring,

Has a phone that no longer rings

Microsoft fucked him

now his voip needs adjustin'

and his browser's now searching with Bing

with apolgies to Dave Barnet and anyone else affected. its a shit thing to happen.

[rvdheij]

Any hope for open source firmware

It seems like the RTX company in Denmark is doing completely different things now. Without Skype the Dual Phone is not attractive anymore because the address book etc lived on Skype as well.

Would be interesting if the company were willing to donate the source of the firmware to the community and see whether there are some folks interesting to carry it forward.

If not, I have 4 heasets and two base stations for sale. And a Nabaztag - another gadget that has lost its glamour with the vendor losing interest.

[MarcFinns]

Think about this

We live abroad. We used several DualPhones for years, to connect grandchildrens with their grandparents. Older people don't give a crap about emoticons and the newest UI. These devices were great at that. Microsoft managed to kill skype too.