Download speed increase

I don’t check it as often as some months ago, but some minutes ago i checked the speed of downloads and i registered 1228 downloads/minute. Probably it has been even higher in previous days. In the last months the speed was almost always way below 1000 downloads/minute.

Why?

I saw several possible reasons:

• On April 25: 10 free SkypeOut minutes for Italian Skypers (why not for Lybia?)
• On April 26: 10 free SkypeOut minutes for UK Skypers (why not for Pakistan?)
• On April 27: 10 free SkypeOut minutes for German Skypers (why not for Burundi?)
• On April 27: 10 free SkypeOut minutes for French Skypers (why not for Belgium?)
• Until May 8: half price for SMS to some countries
• Or is it the success of Skype Extras?

I already blogged on the fact that Skype only gives gifts to the bigger countries (see link here, quite frustrating for the others, not because of the amount of the gift (10 minutes = 17 eurocents or about 12 US$ cents) but the principle!