Starting today, Wal-Mart is offering nine makes of Skype Certified hardware in the Internet and voice communications area of 1,800 of its stores throughout the country. Wal-Mart is also the first U.S. retailer to offer Skype pre-paid cards: a $20 pre-paid card, plus a second card can be used to buy a three-month subscription to the Skype Unlimited Calling Plan for just $8.85. This gives consumers three months of unlimited Skype calls to any landline or cell phone number in the U.S. and Canada.

As the world's largest retailer, Wal-Mart has to basically be all things to all people, from rednecks to road warriors (the techie kind, I mean). But just as a dad shopping with his son might wander into the HDTV aisle, a grandmother out buying toys for her grandchild might see a Skype prepaid card, and wonder what it might do for her. That's sort of how cell phones became mainstream, and how VOIP is as well.