Last night I made another call across the world for free using Skype. Nothing remarkable in that, millions of people are joining the Skype revolution – but what was remarkable is that I was on top of the mountain here in Koh Samui, an island in the Gulf of Thailand and I did it on my cell phone. In the past few weeks I’ve made calls while walking along the beach, sitting in an oceanside pool and drinking on top of the island’s peak.

The service I’ve been using and highly recommend is fring – and other than the unlimited data plan on my Thai SIM it hasn’t cost me a thing. After years of being gouged by local Canadian phone and cable companies, there was a certain euphoria in being able to call fully across the world from a tropical island for absolutely nothing.