We don't have long distance, so Skype is our main way to talk in the US long distance. It is free. However, since DD is in New Zealand we pay under $10 a month and can talk all we want Skype to landline, very cheap for Skype to cell. If we just talked computer to computer it would be free. We used it on the computer on Christmas with the live webcam. It was really neat to be able to see her.