It's gotta be costing them a bundle, but it's sure to land them a whole passel o' new customers. Internet telephony app Skype just announced that they're going to be offering free phone calls through the service to any landline number in the US and Canada. That means that anyone can download the app to their computer and talk for free until December 31st, 2006. Come New Years the free ride may be gone, but the Skype folks aren't necessarily saying that they'll end the promotion then. Nuts? Maybe...it kind of reminds me of those FREE SHIPPING! offers of the dot.com dayz designed to buy customers. On the other hand it could solidify a user-base that otherwise wouldn't use the service.