I own an iPhone. I live in San Francisco. As such, it's basically a total crapshoot as to whether or not I'll be able to make a phone call in the city. Skype had always been a pretty good back-up solution, but an even better one came a few months ago: Gmail Calling . And now Google has just extended the free period of the feature through 2011. Yes, through next year. Gmail Calling is great because it exists fully in the browser in an app that I always have open anyway: Gmail. If you use gChat, it's right below your status message marked with a phone icon and the words "Call phone". Hitting this launches a dialpad window within Gmail (similar to a chat window) and you can call any number in the U.S. or Canada for free. In my experience, the call quality and reliability have been excellent.