D-Link Skype USB Phone Adapter

I am using the DPH-50U to connect my cordless phone to my PC so that I can use Skype-In and Skype-Out as a VOIP service. As long as you follow the instructions with the device (which are simple and straight forward) it is a snap to install.An interesting feature of this box is you can also hook up your regular telephone line to it (I don't have one so I cant comment on this too much) and then "choose" whether to place your outbound calls over the PC via Skype or on the landline. Of course, you'd prefer to make traditionally expensive calls over the Skype and maybe local calls, 911 calls, 411 calls, and toll free calls over the landline.Which brings me to my next point. In order to "tell" the box which line to put your outbound call on, you need to do some interesting dialing codes before dialing the number you wish to call... kind of like dialing "9" from your office to get an outside line.To use the skype feature to call 800-555-1212 I'd have to dial the following:## 001 800 555 1212 *The ## tells it you are making a skype call, the 001 is the country code for the United States, then the phone number, and finally * is sort of like the "send" key on your cell phone, to tell the box you are done typing numbers and to initiate the call. This is a little cumbersome to be honest.Since I don't have a regular landline connected I'm not quite as familiar with the dialing requirements, but I think you just dial out the number and press * (so you don't have to do the ## 00 part as listed above)When I have an incoming skype call, this device rings my phone and you do not have to do anything unusual to receive the call, just pick up the phone.As a side note, since this isn't a rating on Skype but you should have a little background on the service as well if you are thinking of switching over to Skype for VOIP service, the call quality is quite good. Most of our Skype calls are to South Africa and the quality is the same as any other service I ever used, be it AT&T, calling cards, or other VOIP carriers. Another plus is that the US unlimited calling plan with Skype is (at the time of review) $2.99 a month.. Pretty affordable. But you need to have a PC and keep it on for this box to work, so for those with services like Vonage, they pay more ($25/mo) but do not require the PC and if they already have a PC are not required to keep in on 24-7 to receive calls. For me, my PC is on anyway so saving $22 a month was a pretty good deal and the hardware cost ($20) for this box is a real bargain.

So, like other reviewers, I recommend not installing the drivers that come with the device. Instead, get the US Robotics driver.It installed easily and I was able to make phone calls via Skype. However, people I call hear horrible, horrible static from my end of the line. I can make Skype calls from the computer that I have the device connected to, and I don't get any unusual CPU or memory usage, so I'm fairly sure that it's not the computer's fault. I've tried multiple phones as well, to no avail.

I bought the D-Link Skype adapter hoping that it would make it easier for the inexperienced users in the home to use Skype. Everyone knows how to use a phone, not everyone knows how to use Skype.Hardware-wise this product is great. It's small, easy to plug in and requires no AC adapter. Completely portable. The audio quality is great, much better than I had anticipated it would be. There's almost no loss of audio quality between your PC and the phone connected to the device.The call forwarding and dial-out features are awesome. I work in a no-cell-phone-coverage area, but we do have satellite internet access. Works out fabulous: I forward my cell to my home line, and my home line to my PC via Skype. And the other way around too: I can skype home and get a dialtone, and skip the whole VoIP rates mess.But not all is great. This thing is completely lacking software-wise. The drivers are a complete pain to install. It wouldn't surprise me if many of these adapters found their way back to the store due to buggy driver software that refuses to install.The bundled version of Skype refuses to work since there's a more recent version available. And worst of all, the newer versions of Skype have no speeddial! This adapter is BASED on speeddial. Nothing left to do but implement workarounds, which kills most of the joy behind the product.There's no support for Linux or Windows 7. It's impossible to work this thing on Linux even if you use a VM such as VirtualBox.In short, this is not a product for the novice. If you're willing to take a command prompt and hack away for half an hour to implement workarounds and fix faulty installations, you'll probably get the DPH-50U working eventually. But if you just want something that works and have no idea how to deal with buggy software, better pass this one up.