Netgear Inc. and Skype, the Web-based calling company which is a unit of eBay Inc., plan to introduce the first wireless mobile telephone for Skype users.

The Netgear Wi-Fi phone is designed to work wherever a consumer is connected to a wireless Internet access point — at home, in an office, cafe, public hotspot or in cities where wireless access may be available citywide, the companies said.

By contrast, existing Skype phones, including cordless models, must be connected to a computer. 

A variety of telephone makers including Cisco’s Linksys, are seeking to cash in on the Web-based calling craze popularized by Skype, first in Europe and Asia, and increasingly in the United States.

Users can make free domestic and international calls and hold conference calls with other Skype users. Calls to regular phones incur a small fee.

“Customers can now call anyone on Skype, anywhere in the world for free without using a PC anytime they are connected to Wi-Fi,” said Patrick Lo, Netgear’s chairman and chief executive said in a statement issued ahead of a press conference at CES.

More information on Netgear’s Skype Wi-Fi phone, including pricing and availability, is planned for the first quarter of 2006, the companies said.