Get Skype on Your iPhone/iPod Touch in Canada

Skype is one of the most popular free Voice-Over-IP (VOIP) applications today. VOIP services allow you to make phone calls through your computer over the internet rather then through conventional phone likes. The main advantage to using VOIP over a conventional phone line is cost. In Skype, talking to other users of the service is free of charge regardless of where they are in the world. Assuming the bit rate is around 20kbps, this works out to 150 kilobytes per minute. Using my Cogeco service for an example, which is $44.95/mo for 60gb, that works to be roughly 0.01 cents per minute long distance, which is negligible. 1gb gives roughly 7,000 minutes talk time, far more than anybody would use. Calling land lines with Skype costs about $2.95 per month for unlimited US & Canada. It provides a cheaper, no frills alternative to more advanced VOIP services offered through cable companies when features such as call display, voice mail, and call forwarding are unwanted. The biggest flaw of course is that Skype cannot work with a standard phone, unlike VOIP offered through a cable company. It requires additional equipment such as an existing broadband internet connection, wifi router, and a wifi phone in order to use it without having your computer on. The Wifi phones are quite expensive, with the cheapest one going on Skype’s site for $134 USD. Fortunately, many smart phones and wireless PDAs have Skype apps available to them, including the iPhone and iPod Touch.

If you go searching on the Canadian iTunes Store for Skype, you won’t find it, and it doesn’t appear it will be coming out any time soon. Unfortunately, the Skype app for the iPhone is not available in Canada. It was apparently barred by the Canadian Radio & Telecommunications Council (CRTC). There have been a couple of rumours floating around as to why. Some claim there were issues with e911. When using Skype, 911 services cannot locate you. Others say it was due to a patent issue over the why Skype handles data. Regardless, Canadians wanting to use Skype on their iPhone or Touch are pretty much out of luck, unless of course you’re smart enough to cheat the system. You don’t even need to jailbreak your phone to get it. You need to create a US iTunes account. Here’s how to do it.

-Open up iTunes, select iTunes Store in the left column, then scroll to the bottom. Where it says “My Store”, select “United States” from the list.
-It will prompt you to log in. You can’t use your Canadian account so you’ll need to make a new account. The EULA will say it’s for American buyers only. Just ignore that. We’re not buying anything after all. Follow the on screen instructions.
-Create a different username and password from your Canadian one.
-When it asks for a credit card, select “none”.
-Under address, enter your name (real or fake, it doesn’t matter).
-Enter a fake street address but use a real city and matching zip code.
-Enter an email address and phone number that’s different from your Canadian account.
-Once you’re done, it will send a confirmation email to the account you provided. Open it and click the link. There, you’re all done.
-Now, just search for Skype, it’s a free app, and download it. Now you can make all the VOIP calls you want from your iPhone or Touch instead of having to use your computer.

Now, I should mention a couple of things about signing up for an account that’s in a different country from your own. It does violate the EULA. Apple probably won’t come breaking down your door but you’ll get no warranty or technical support. Secondly, you’ll only be able to purchase free apps. The iTunes Store requires that you have a credit card issued in the same country as the address provided so if you have a Canadian card it won’t work. Despite that, you can now access the entire American App Store library. There are quite a few free apps that are only available there and not abroad. I tried the American only Sirius/XM app as well. XMRO is still free to Canadian hardware radio subscribers. However, the App requires a US based subscription so unfortunately my Canadian username and password did not work. (as a side note, XM Canada and XM/Sirius are two separate companies even though they provide an identical service, sans premium Sirius content of course. XM Canada and Sirius Canada did not merge unlike the US companies)

Source: Wifitalk.ca