B. Mann Consulting

That was fast. SkypeIn, Skype's connection of "real" phone numbers to your Skype account, is live.

They are offering numbers from Hong Kong, the UK (well, sold out, apparently), France, and the US. I've seen people say they want to wait for Canadian numbers -- I'll probably just try a US number and get a Canadian one later.

So, looking at the list of US area codes, I was trying to figure out what area I would want a number from. I copied out all the area codes and looked them up here. Below is the list of SkypeIn area codes and what area of the US they are connected with:

203 - Connecticut: Fairfield County and New Haven County; Bridgeport, New Haven
240 - W Maryland: Silver Spring, Frederick, Gaithersburg
248 - Michigan: Oakland County
267 - SE Pennsylvania: Philadelphia
301 - W Maryland: Silver Spring, Frederick, Camp Springs, Prince George's County
302 - Delaware
310 - S California: Beverly Hills, West Hollywood, West Los Angeles
312 - Illinois: Chicago
347 - New York
408 - Cent. Coastal California: San Jose
415 - California: San Francisco County and Marin County
508 - Cent. Massachusetts: Framingham; Cape Cod
562 - California: Long Beach
586 - Michigan: Macomb County
626 - E S California: Pasadena
631 - New York: Suffolk County, Long Island; Huntington, Riverhead
646 - New York
650 - California: Peninsula south of San Francisco
678 - N Georgia: metropolitan Atlanta
706 - N Georgia: Columbus, Augusta
707 - NW California: Santa Rosa, Napa, Vallejo, American Canyon, Fairfield
718 - New York City Metro Area, New York
734 - SE Michigan: west and south of Detroit -- Ann Arbor, Monroe
773 - Illinois: city of Chicago, outside the loop
774 - Cent. Massachusetts: Framingham; Cape Cod
805 - S Cent. and Cent. Coastal California
815 - NW Illinois: Rockford, Kankakee
817 - N Cent. Texas: Fort Worth area
903 - NE Texas: Tyler
978 - Massachusetts: north of Boston to NH

Hmmm...where to pick? Does it make sense to pick a number in your own timezone? Or should I pick a number "close" to some clients in Chicago or Northeast Ohio? When looking at SIPPhone, I was going to get a Silicon Valley number...far cheaper than opening an office down there.

Skype's list of numbers will likely change. The only list is from actually going through the sign up process and copying out the list of numbers, so I'll update this as I can.

Update: OK, I picked. You can call me at (415) 367-3595 -- a San Francisco number. It will go to voicemail if I don't pick up, with this great Norwegian lady telling you that I'm not available.

I was thinking that I could use the voicemail instead of my cellphone voicemail, but it would mean paying long distance charges to San Fran. Of course, this might still be cheaper than my $8/month voicemail and caller display charges.

In my test (I called the number from my cell phone), SkypeIn does Caller ID as well.