I'd prefer to avoid to use Skype, but a lot of clients asked me to open an account.
Skype run out of the box (or nearly out of the box) on Debian just on x86 boxes and my main box is an amd64. My notebook is a Dell XPS M1210 and I've Skype installed there, but it is always off when I'm at home and it is not as comfort as using a cordless phone.

As soon as I discovered fring for my Nokia E70 I decided I was going to give it a try.
Nokia E70 has wifi, so I could actually make it a cordless phone inside my home and I could make free calls in international airports that offer free wifi connection and as last resort I could use 3G connection to make international calls.

The first day I tryed it... well it was the day skype login system had a major failure... and well I thought it was the client and I removed it from the phone. This was going to cause me some nuisance later.

I decided to install everything directly from the phone. So I opened Nokia browser, surfed to fring, compiled the form and... surprise... I couldn't download the software directly. You've to wait an SMS containing a URL from where you'll be able to download the software. The URL can be used just one time! I bet you're starting to guess what the nuisance was ;).

So... what I had to do to download the software again after I deleted it was to subscribe once more.

Shortcomings

The software works... so I could make skype call from my mobile through my home wifi LAN but:

• You've to have a *real* skype (MSN, Google Talk bla bla) client to manage contacts [sic]. You can't add or delete contact from the phone client.
• Skype text chat loses messages. What happens is you hear the ding of an incoming message but the chat window looks empty
• You can't hide
• I was not able to draw any conclusion about sound quality cos even the notebook, connected through wifi with a native skype client didn't have a good sound quality. I think it is a problem of my wifi LAN

Conclusions

Here the audio quality is so low that I rarely use it. I may think to change the router or connect the notebook to the lan through a cable to test if it is the wifi, the adsl connection or fring client

I don't know if I'd be happier if the sound quality was better because I don't like closed protocols expecially when there are open and more mature ones.
The only use I can think of it is having a very limited list of "special" contacts and use it occasionally when you're abroad to save some money at the airports or as a replacement of a usb wireless skype phone just because of its more comfortable form factor.

Shame on anyone not using SIP or any not open protocol, shame on anyone that doesn't make a decent amd64 version of their software, shame on everyone not making an as good as Windows version for Linux.
Nokia E70 already have a SIP client but skype is so annoying popular. What's wrong with Ekiga, OpenWengo, KPhone, Gizmo, PhoneGaim...