Skype expands Access service to over 500,000 Wi-Fi hotspots

By Aemon Malone Published February 14, 2013

This year’s Mobile World Conference (MWC) in Barcelona, Spain may be dominated by tablets and smartphones, but Skype found some space to squeeze in an announcement about its Wi-Fi service, Skype Access. The popular VoIP (voice over Internet protocol) provider announced that it plans on expanding its partnerships to cover over 500,000 locations around the world. Skype Access previously is available at around 200,000 locations.

Skype Access allows users to connect to a pay-as-go Wi-Fi hotspot on a per minute basis. Skype plans to cover 500 airports, some 30,000 hotels and other locations. Rates will vary from location to location and range between $0.05 and $0.19 per minute.

Recommended Videos

The service should prove to be popular among travelers who are used to getting stuck paying for expensive Wi-Fi access per hour or per day just to fire off a few e-mails while waiting in an airport. And, if you happen to find yourself in Barcelona in between now and February 18, you’ll be able to check out Skype Access for free.

The list of international partners include: BT Openzone, M3 Connect, Fon, Row 44, Skyrove, Spectrum Interactive, Tomizone and Vex.

Skype also announced a plan to bring its VoIP service to more smartphones — especially those on networks with weak 3G coverage — through an expansion to its Mobile Partner Program. As part of the program, Skype will offer to pre-load a version of its Skype app onto handsets.

“The versions of Skype delivered through this program are optimised for efficient bandwidth usage, keeping you connected with minimal impact on battery life and data usage,” Skype said in a blog post. Skype launched a similar program in 2010, offering a version of its mobile app on select Verizon devices.

Former Digital Trends Contributor

Topics

Computing

What’s the Right Laptop for a Student on a $1,000 Budget?

The best college laptop isn't the one with the longest spec sheet. It's the one that fits your budget and the way you'll actually use it.

Dell XPS 14 Review: Sticker

This post is brought to you in paid partnership with Dell

Buying a laptop for college isn't a decision made in isolation. Tuition, textbooks, housing, meal plans, transportation, and course materials all compete for the same budget, leaving most families with one question before the semester begins: how much is enough to spend on a laptop without paying for features that may never get used?

Wearables

Siri is about to hear everything you say, but Apple’s privacy approach has me cautiously on board

Apple's new Audio Intelligence features want to hear almost everything you say. A privacy document released alongside them explains why I am mostly okay with that.

Apple Watch Audio Intelligence features

Apple used its September 2026 launch event to enter a feature category it has mostly avoided until now: ambient listening. Siri Recap, Live Rewind, Music Recognition with Shazam, and Sound Recognition all landed on the Apple Watch Series 12 and Apple Watch Ultra 4. All four depend on the watch microphone picking up sound around you far more often than any previous Apple product has.

Siri Recap listens for conversations throughout your day and turns them into short AI summaries you can check later. Live Rewind is smaller in scope but arguably more useful day-to-day. It transcribes the last 15 seconds of whatever was just said with a double-press of the crown. This is perfect for catching a name, a book title, or directions you missed the first time. Music Recognition uses Shazam to identify songs playing nearby without you lifting a finger, much like Now Playing on Google's Pixel devices. Sound Recognition is a useful accessibility feature that listens for sirens, doorbells, and alarms to alert users who have a hearing impairment.

Computing

Can You Turn a Mini PC Into a Local AI Agent?

Furniture, Table, Computer

This post is brought to you in paid partnership with MSI

Not every AI task needs the scale of the cloud. An employee searching company documents, a retail kiosk answering product questions, or a digital sign reacting to customer behavior all need fast responses, but they don't necessarily need to send every prompt to a remote data center. Running those workloads locally reduces latency, keeps sensitive information closer to where it's generated, and can lower the ongoing cost of AI deployments. As a result, many organizations are moving toward hybrid AI architectures that handle routine requests on-device while reserving cloud models for tasks that genuinely need more processing power.