How to Use iPhone Skype Without Wi-Fi

Chances are, if you have an iPhone, you’ve been testing out the Skype client for the device for a while now. What you may or may not have noticed in recent months is that with the advent of iPhone 3.0, Skype seemed to be working pretty reliably over 3G networks rather than the Wi-Fi imposed prison that Apple had originally locked it in.

However, most of these confirmation tests were done over four months ago in May with the “Gold” iPhone 3.0 OS, and that doesn’t take into account changes Apple might’ve made with 3.0.1 and future firmware for the device.

That being said, the jailbreak community has been taking advantage of free calling on the iPhone with Skype for a while now thanks to a great program called VoIPover3G. Let’s take a look at how you can permanently get in on using your Skype account on-the-go.

1. It goes without saying that the rest of this guide assumes your iPhone is already jailbroken, if not, there’s an excellent guide on how to do it here

2. Once your iPhone is jailbroken to your heart’s content, proceed into the Cydia app and click on the search icon

3. Inside the search screen, look up “VoIPover3G”

4. Once you’ve found the program, click on it to proceed to the next screen

5. Inside this screen, simply click “Install” on the top right hand corner

6. In the next screen, click on “confirm” in the same place you selected on Install

7. Once you confirm, just let Cydia do what it does best and install the software

8. After it’s done, Cydia will want to reload the Springboard. Go ahead and let it.

9. And you’re done! Now you can use 3G as if it were Wi-Fi

This is a great work-around to things like iTunes as well, which requires Wi-Fi for larger files – just remember the warning about excessive data consumption. Should you go over the amount of 5 GB, you’ll be charged a hefty amount. However, unless you’re heavily downloading files, this cap shouldn’t factor into your usage. Also, keep in mind that while doing this, your battery will drain extremely fast – because the 3G antenna consumes much more battery than Wi-Fi.