Skype is now the largest international carrier

I have always been a strong proponent for the use of Skype. I use it just about everyday to talk or chat with friends from the most distant corners of the planet and was quite pleased when I read the news, yesterday, that Skype is now the largest international carrier in the world.

In 2008, Skype carried 33 Billion minutes of international calls, being thus responsible for about 8% of the international voice traffic. That is a huge quantity of voice traffic.

The funniest thing to me is that still an enourmous quantity of people still don't use Skype in their day to day activities. Still, it seems that word-of-mouth advertising is driving the company ahead, as I now know personally a large number of people who, despite not being computer savvy, have become frequent skypers.

I was just talking to a friend, making a call to his mobile phone through Skype, while connected through a 3G connection and the connection not only was perfect, but the call costs less than using my mobile phone. It seems that interesting times are still ahead for Skype and its users...