We use Skype very successfully to talk via computer to computer. Our daughter is tavelling in the Ukraine this month and we just finished a great hour and a half free call with here. She has a headset and microphone that plugs into the USB port on the computer in the hostels where she's staying. We just use the mic and speakers on our laptop computer. So if both parties have computers, it works great.

However, we've not had great success talking from our computer to a land line phone in either the US or internationally. The conversations have been choppy with static and echo and really not very usable. Not sure if it would be better if we bought a Skpe phone to plug into the computer or router or not. We'll have to experiment some more. We're still in a stick home, but that will change in January, so we've got to work the bugs out.

Skype doesn't work very well with internet satellite due to the time lag but if you're not easily frustrated, you can use it!