[alisonatwork]

Basically, this. I use Skype to make international phone calls to deal with things like banking, tax etc in a country where I have citizenship but do not live. Exactly the same situation as you - I don't know up-front when the bank is going to randomly put a block on my credit card or when I am going to need spend 2 hours on hold with the tax office, so maintaining a monthly subscription is not appropriate. In the ideal world I would never need to make a call to a traditional phone line at all, but the occasional time that I do, I have Skype. It's very annoying that this is going to go away.