For me, the promised addition of Skype to the Nokia N800 Internet Tablet has meant the ability to connect to millions of Skype users for free voip calls — a network far larger than Gizmo and Google Talk offer — and, of course, video internet calls.

Maybe I’ve been missing the boat on this.

A forum post here at ITT alerted us to a post at jkontherun with a photo of Skype running on the N800 and a few pieces of information: July. No video yet.

No cam calls? What’s the point? I thought.

And then I wondered why the photo showed a “Buy Skype credit” link in the app. You only use that when you pay for Skype calls, which is only when you’re calling someone who doesn’t have Skype.

Yikes!

Will I be able to call anyone on any landline or cellphone whatsoever from my Internet Tablet? Looks like it to me.

That, I think, is maybe going to ease my unhappiness at having to wait for Skype cam calls. More than a lot, I should say.

(photo from jkontherun)

* * *

Update: Two days a week I work from home, and I tie up the house phone for an hour at a time with weekly conference calls.

The cellphone reception right where we are (at the bottom of a hill) is poor, else I’d consider our cellphones as alternate home phones.

In the past, we’ve had two lines, but we never knew when we needed the second line and the expense has never seemed justified. But what a pain it is sometimes having just one phone line.

My “use Skype for a second line” and “well, use Gizmo then” efforts were abysmal failures. Maybe it was my cheap headset. But things didn’t work out. And I sure didn’t like being tethered to the upstairs computer anytime I wanted to make a call.

I realize now that my N800 and 770 aren’t two new phones. They’re two new phone lines. (Hey, with two children entering precocious years, I might need more than two additional lines.) Low rates, too — $30/year for unlimited calling to regular phones on Skype (eg, $2.50/month) and just 1.9 cents per minute at Gizmo with no minimum monthly.

Could be a very easy way to enable each of us to be able to talk (and wander around the house!) at the same time.