A True International Traveler's Phone?

There has been a lot of noise coming from my Asia contacts lately about a new Skype based phone that will allow a fixed cost plan for making and receiving calls from anywhere in the world. This means that roaming charges may no longer apply or so I was told anyway. I am thinking this might be it?



It sounds like a very interesting solution for international businesses or even the retired who's traveling all over the world. With that said, I have a few questions about this new phone if any of my HK readers are familiar with this product in an attempt to clear up some confusion:

1. Besides the "3 Skype phone," are there any other similar products in HK right now that fits the description?

2. Does this phone's creator or carrier have contracts with carriers in each country they don't have coverage in so that there won't be any extra charges for roaming on their data networks when used outside of the country it was purchased from and hence making it a true international mobile phone solution? Or is this stuck to only certain areas that the carrier has coverage in as most of the news coverage I have read suggested?

3. How does it perform compared to the traditional cell phones? (speed of msg delivery, voice quality, video functionality?, etc)

I am personally quite excited about this product even though it might not meet all of my requirements. The reason why I say this is because this product is a sign of progression towards a product that I will most likely eventually love. I think what would even kick it up yet another notch is if you can get up to 3 Skype-in numbers from the countries that you visit most as part of the package. Maybe I am too idealistic though. Here's a TechCrunch article about the Skype phone which makes me think that we are far from a truly international low/fixed-cost mobile solution as I had initially hoped for after briefly hearing about it from my contacts. With all that said, the looks of the "3 Skype Phone" is not all that impressive either which is kind of disappointing. =/ Regardless, I will definitely follow up on this later.