Skype to compensate users for September outage

Skype today said it would offer users compensation for an outage last month that saw customers worldwide unable to use the internet voice, video and instant messaging service.

The September 21 outage lasted around six and a half hours, affecting customers in Australia and New Zealand as well as others around the globe.

The Microsoft-owned communications provider has until now remained silent on the issue of compensation, but today apologised and said it held itself highly accountable and would redress users for the loss of service.

"We're sorry for the technical issue we suffered that day," Skype said in an email to its customers.

"We know how important our service is to you and how frustrating outages like this can be. We also know that sometimes saying sorry just isn't enough."

Customers will get 20 minutes of free calls to over 60 landline and eight mobile destinations around the world in a few days time, Skype said.

Users will need to check their accounts to see which destinations are covered and the credit will only be available to use for seven days.