Skype is offering 6 months free landline calls for its UK subscribers to UK landlines. Provided you buy a minimum of £10 Skype Credit.

So the deal isn't totally free, however it's a decent deal if you are currently using Skype credit for international calls, sending low-cost SMS messages, and a new ringtone to personalise your Skype..

The deal is "unlimited calls to UK landlines for 6 months at £1.66 per month, which is a bargin if you call a lot of people.

How long will the promotion last?

You can claim your free calls until 31st December 2006. This means that if you are a UK user and you buy Skype Credit before 31st December, you can make free calls to UK landlines for six months starting from the activation date of your free calls.

Skype is gambling that you'll become hooked as millions of others have on calling all your friends on their old-fashioned telephones and continue to pay for the service after your free trial expires.

Wizzard Software is excited to announce that WizzTones, Wizzard Software’s premiere software application for Skype, has become Skype Certified through a worldwide co-marketing and licensing agreement.

WizzTones is a unique software product designed specifically for use with Skype, one of the leading applications in global Internet communications. WizzTones provides Skype customers with a fun, inventive and resourceful way to manage their Skype contacts list. With WizzTones, customers can assign each individual on their Skype contacts list a personalized ring tone, giving them the freedom to walk away from the computer but still be able to identify just who is trying to get in touch with them.

“We are delighted to enter this new relationship with Skype,” said Danielle Lewis, marketing director for Wizzard Software. “This agreement will allow us to broaden our global reach and bring WizzTones to even more Skype users throughout the world.”

SMC Networks' WiFi phone for Skype will now be able to make Internet-based Skype phone calls when within range of a Cloud hotspot. When the calls are from another Skype users the calls are entirely free. However calls to fixed and mobile users will be at a substantially reduced cost of Skypeout minutes. The phone also provides its users with access to their Skype accounts and contacts.

"The Cloud currently has some 8,500 hotspots in the UK, Germany, the Nordic countries and The Netherlands. It also operates large scale networks across the City of London, Canary Wharf, Amsterdam and seven other UK cities and two London boroughs."

Actiontec Electronics announced the availability of VoSKY Exchange 9040 and 9080, new versions of its Skype PBX gateway for small and mid-sized businesses. The new stackable, rackmountable devices add four or eight outgoing Skype lines to the office PBX, allowing users to make and receive free and low-cost long-distance and international phone calls over the world's largest Voice over Internet Protocol network. A software upgrade also simplifies management and reporting.

Using the Internet to lower phone bills just got easier, thanks to the launch of Auvi's PHIP65 Dual Mode Cordless Phone. The sleek PHIP65 is the next generation of communication hardware which connects to a traditional landline and the computer, via USB port. This dual functionality gives consumers the freedom to make and receive both standard and / or Internet calls from a single cordless phone.

Designed to work with Skype Internet software, the PHIP65 enables individuals to use their Skype contact list at a push of a button to talk to other Skype users globally for free or make low cost calls through other Skype services. In addition, users can use their regular phone service for local calls.

Works Out Software, Inc. announced the availability of a new version of its flagship product, CallButler, that integrates with the Skype internet telephone service.

The CallButler for Skype solutions offer the more than 130 million Skype users the ability to seamlessly integrate advanced calling features with their Skype accounts. These features include integrated voicemail with unlimited storage, custom greetings, text-to-speech, auto-attendant, interactive voice response (IVR), dial-by-name directory, music on-hold (MOH), database/web service integration, and integration with Microsoft Outlook.

EQO Communications, a leading developer of platforms for mobilizing online social networks, VoIP and instant messaging services, announced the immediate availability a new version of EQO Mobile, extending the most popular instant messenger services - including AOL Instant Messenger, ICQ, GoogleTalk, Jabber, MSN Messenger, Yahoo! Instant Messenger and Skype - to mobile phones. With EQO, users can access all of their IM services from their phone and exchange free text and picture messages with other EQO users. Supported on more than 300 mobile handset models, the latest version of EQO Mobile is an easily installed Java mobile application that downloads over the wireless data network.

Polycom, Inc., the world's leading provider of unified collaborative communications solutions, announced that the Polycom VoiceStation 500 conference phone is Skype Certified. The integration of Skype and the VoiceStation 500 enables customers to easily host business quality conference calls in a small conference room or executive office using Skype. The VoiceStation 500 features Bluetooth wireless and an applications port that enables it to seamlessly work with Skype running on a PC.

Skype has patched a critical vulnerability in the Mac OS X edition of its flagship VoIP client that could be used by attackers to grab control of a user's computer.

The flaw, which Skype rated as "high" and Danish vulnerability tracker Secunia pegged as "highly critical," is in how the Internet telephony application processes Web addresses. According to the Skype security advisory, an attacker could create a malformed URL, then send that to a Skype user who, after clicking on the link, would either see Skype crash or have his Mac hijacked.

Busta, the Internet "mobile phone" has already attracted Skype users in over 50 countries since it’s launch 20 days ago primarily because of portability and it's "no network compromise" technology. PageFlakes and WebWag become the latest additions to the Busta "gadgets". BustaMe! tags deliver free calls and voice mail into MySpace and Linked In and Busta Up! enables easy upload of contacts from Outlook.

Actiontec Electronics has launched a reseller program for its VoSKY Exchange product, a PBX add-on that enables businesses to access Skype's Voice-over-Internet-Protocol (VoIP) service to make and receive free and low-cost long-distance phone calls to and from any destination worldwide. The combination of VoSKY Exchange and Skype can yield major cost savings for businesses with multiple locations, remote workers and/or customers, partners and suppliers in other cities.

Actiontec Electronics announced a new distributor agreement for its VoSKY family of Skype-certified products with Azlan, the Enterprise business unit of Tech Data Europe, serving resellers throughout the UK and Ireland. The agreement covers VoSKY Exchange, the first solution that enables businesses to take advantage of Skype's Internet phone service, as well as three other VoSKY products for making Skype calls from home phones, mobile phones, and hands-free speakerphones.

Edge-Core, Brand Division of Accton Technology, announced the availability of its new 802.11b/g Wi-Fi phone that utilizes Skype software. The mobile phone comes with Skype Internet communications software, and offers great voice quality, mobility, and cost savings. The WM4201 Edge-Core Wi-Fi phone for Skype offers all of the Skype calling features, along with an IEEE 802.11b/g wireless connection and candy bar shaped design to help users reduce communication costs and move at the same time.

You can read more here how Philips Electronics is teaming with Skype and Microsoft Corp. to present two new Internet telephony phones, the Skype VOIP321 (pictured) and Windows Live Messenger VOIP433.

The devices were shown first time during the CES 2006 in Las Vegas, and showcased again during the Philips’ 2006 CE Line Show/Holidays.

EQO Communications and TOM Online, a leading mobile Internet company in China, are pleased to announce an agreement to jointly market the popular EQO Mobile for Skype solution in China.

EQO Mobile lets users make and receive Skype calls, exchange Instant Messages, and view presence information about their buddies over the Skype network from more than 55 different phone handset models from vendors including Nokia, Motorola, Palm, and Sony-Ericsson. Most recently, EQO announced support for Palm TREO 650 and Motorola ROKR, SLVR, and RAZR handsets.