Skype to start charging for calls to phones again
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Internet telephone service Skype said  on Wednesday that it would charge customers $29.95 a year for  unlimited calling in the United States and Canada, a service it  had offered free since May.
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Assuming you know who you're going to call Skype Pro customers can now make international calls from their mobiles or any other phone at Skype Out rates, provided they've pre-registered the numbers they want to call.â¦
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(InfoWorld) - Nearly one year after Skype stole the headlines at the 3GSM World Congress with itsÂ plans to offer a mobile versionÂ of its Internet phone, a couple of nimble startups -- and not the Net telephony pioneer itself -- appear to have found a way to make this type of service work, both technically and commercially. Earlier this week, JajahÂ announced aÂ new mobile VOIPÂ serviceÂ that allows smart-phone users to make low-cost and, in some cases, free international calls. Customers simply enter Jajah's mobile Web portal through their handset's browser, enter their user name and password and then make a either a free or low-cost call. The launch of Jajah Mobile Web comes on the heals of a mobile VOIP (voice over IP) offering by Fring, which, unlike Jajah, requires users to download software and install it in their Internet-enabled handsets. The Fring service gives mobile users access to P-to-P (peer-to-peer) VOIP offerings such as Skype and Google Talk. Microsoft appears to have its finger on the pulse of mobile VOIP, too. Next week in Barcelona, the U.S. software giant will unwrap aÂ new version of its Windows Mobile OSÂ that will supposedly enable carriers and device maker to add VOIP functionality to Windows Mobile devices. All these announcements -- and the many more expected at this year's 3GSM World Congress -- come as Skype, which essentially stunned the mobile phone industry last year with its VOIP plans, acknowledges technical and commercial hurdles. In a recent interview in Finnish newspaper, Skype co-founder and CEO Niklas ZennstrÃ¶m spoke of "technical obstacles" and conceded that efforts to make Skype work had been taking "much longer than expected." At the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas last month, Eric Lagier, Skype director of business development for hardware and mobile, called the lack of attractive flat-rate fees for most mobile phone services a key commercial hurdle to mobile VOIP usage. He said the company didn't want to be in a position of claiming that its service is free, but facing users who at the end of the month are docked with a huge broadband usage fee. At last year's 3GSM World Congress, Skype and the Hutchison 3 Group (Hutchison 3G)Â announced a partnershipÂ to provide what they had hoped to become the world's first commercial VOIP service for mobile phones. Hutchison 3G, which operates IP-based mobile broadband networks in several European markets, was one of the first mobile phone operators to embrace VOIP, a technology many in the industry view as a major threat to their cash-cow voice business. But industry experts admit that challenges remain.Â One hurdle in providing quality VOIP serviceÂ over mobile handsets is the uplink, which is currently too slow to support quality voice calls, John Giere, chief marketing officer at Alcatel-Lucent, said in an earlier interview. To increase uplink speeds, operators of GSM (Global System for Mobile Communications) networks, which dominate Europe and many parts of Asia and Latin America, will need to upgrade their networks with HSUPA (High Speed Uplink Packet Access) technology, which will give operators "the bidirectional capability they need to run real VOIP," he said. The high-speed technology is not expected to become commercially available in volume until the latter part of 2007 or early 2008. Operators are presently busy rolling out the downlink counterpart HSDPA (High Speed Downlink Packet Access).
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The day seems to be approaching when free phone service over the Internet will be available on mobile devices everywhere. On Wednesday, mobile phone giant Nokia took a step closer to that day by making Skype&#39;s Internet phone service available on its N800 Internet tablet.
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Software is designed to allow free video calls between Skype users with Windows or Mac machines.
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The founders of Skype, an online  telephone business sold last year to eBay Inc.  for  $2.6 billion, are testing a broadband television service for  computer screens, the founders' spokesman said on Monday.
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Skype handset to launch Monday 3 UK has admitted that it's working on a Skype phone to bring VoIP connectivity to more of its mobile customers.â¦
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(InfoWorld) - SkypeÂ is looking to a 1968 ruling by the U.S. Federal Communications Commission to open up the country's mobile phone industry for "unlocked" devices and third-party applications -- such as Skype. The eBayÂ unit, a pioneer in peer-to-peer VOIP (voice over Internet Protocol), petitioned the FCC this week to affirm that the landmark Carterphone decision applies to the cellular world. That ruling, which involved an early type of wireless handset, said carriers couldn't stop consumers from attaching any device to the wired telecommunications network as long as it couldn't do any damage. Letting any device connect to cellular networks would gradually open the door to a wide range of new choices for consumers, including handsets that use VOIP for voice calls over operators' 3G (third-generation) data networks. Almost all cellphones in use on mobile networks in the U.S. are sold by the operators and locked so they can't be used on another provider's network. But Skype's proposal also would stop carriers from blocking or forbidding applications on 3G networks -- again, as long as those applications can't damage the network. The plan cuts to the heart of mobile operators' revenue stream, which still predominantly comes from voice calls and also depends on exclusive ringtone, music, video, and other services offered by the carriers. But there's no reason the earlier ruling on the wireline phone network shouldn't apply to mobile, according to Christopher Libertelli, Skype's senior director for government and regulatory affairs. In addition, preventing carriers from blocking outside applications is in keeping with the FCC's policy on network neutrality, he said. Cellular providers have always had closed networks, but the rollout of 3G makes possible many more uses of those networks, he said. "What we're trying to do is get in front of that trend so that policy is set in the correct way," Libertelli said. In addition to the new rules, Skype proposed an industry forum to determine what types of devices are harmful to the wireless network. The mobile industry promptly slammed Skype's petition. It would freeze innovation, according to a statement by Steve Largent, president and CEO of the Cellular Telecommunications & Internet Association (CTIA), an industry group. "Skype's self-interested filing contains glaring legal flaws and a complete disregard for the vast consumer benefits provided by the competitive marketplace," Largent said. Skype's Libertelli said the company has a big job to do in educating cellular companies and others but believes the change would help carriers by creating new uses for their networks. It's hard to predict how the FCC may respond to Skype's petition, said Johna Till Johnson, president of Nemertes Research, in Mokena, Illinois. In recent years the agency has been alternately supportive and wary of disruptive technologies, she said. It might even drag its heels on making a ruling, not wanting to be drawn into a big political fight. It's most likely to come down somewhere in the middle, Johnson believes. Though the cost of phone calls might fall if Skype won, there could be a downside: Without the incentive of selling their captive services, cellular companies might be less motivated to upgrade their networks, Johnson said. Skype expects the agency to put the petition out for public comment and response, a process that would take several weeks.
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Continuing its expansion into the Wireless Internet Phone Market, Globe7 launched two new USB phones with a value based calling plan that is sure to make consumers take note. $120 is the total consumer outlay. Customers can make unlimited calls to 25 countries for one year.
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The founders of Skype, an online  telephone business sold last year to eBay Inc. for $2.6  billion, are testing a broadband television service for  computer screens, the founders' spokesman said on Monday.
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Pocket PC users who were expecting to use Skype Technologies&#39;s SkypeOut service to make telephone calls via the Internet may find themselves without a dial-tone.
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Ecamm Networks revamps its Call Recorder program to support Skype 2.3.
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NEW YORK -- Skype is introducing a $30 annual subscription to make unlimited calls with the Internet-based telephone service to any regular or mobile phone number within the United States and Canada.
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(InfoWorld) - Nokia introduced Skype Internet-calling software for its N800 Wi-Fi tablet on Wednesday, providing another alternative to using a cell phone, while a debate in the U.S. over what networks such devices may be able to use in the future heated up. When the N800 was introduced at the International Consumer Electronics Show in January, Nokia and eBay's SkypeÂ division said they were working on including the popular software in the device. Nokia delivered it on Wednesday with an upgrade to the N800's software. Current owners of N800s can download the software from Nokia's site. Skype, with a claimed 196 million registered users, has expanded from its roots as a popular PC-based free calling system and offers text messaging, video calling, and low-cost dialing to and from traditional phones. There are already Skype clients for mobile devices and even some cellular smart phones, but some mobile operators try to block VoIPÂ calls because they can eat into their voice business. Unlike the Apple iPhone -- available in the U.S. only through AT&T -- the N800 doesn't have cellular connectivity, only Wi-Fi and short-range Bluetooth technology. So the device can access the Internet in a home or office, at a public hot spot, or on a municipal Wi-Fi network, but not in the vast areas covered by cellular data networks. The N800 is available at retail stores and Nokia's Web site for a list price of $399.99. eBay is among a group of companies calling on the U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC) toÂ encourage more competition against incumbent mobile operatorsÂ when it auctions off prime radio spectrum in the 700MHz band. FCC Chairman Kevin Martin is advocating setting aside part of the spectrum for a network that would allow use of any application on any device, getting away from carriers' limited handset offerings and "walled gardens." But Skype's parent has joined consumer groups in calling for rules that would force spectrum holders to sell access to their networks wholesale to competitive service providers. In addition to the Skype client, the new software version includes an Adobe Flash 9 Web browser plug-in and lets customers use larger capacity memory cards up to 8GB. The N800 has slots to accommodate SD (Secure Digital), MicroSD, MiniSD, MMC (MultiMedia Card) and Reduced-Size MMC cards. The Linux-based device also has a built-in camera and an on-screen touch keyboard and uses the Opera browser.
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They plug in to a broadband connection jack and a standard home phone jack and can send and receive Skype calls over the Internet as well as calls from a regular home phone number.
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Skype Ltd. is looking to a 1968 ruling by the U.S. Federal Communications Commission to open up the country's mobile phone industry for "unlocked" devices and third-party applications-- such as Skype.
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NEW YORK -  Skype, which helped make free PC-to-PC calling a global phenomenon, will announce Wednesday a $29.95-a-year service offering unlimited calls to wireless and traditional landline phones.  Skype's Unlimited Calling subscription moves the company toward the mainstream of phone services and poses a significant challenge on price to many VoIP services - short for Voice over Internet Protocol - that can cost $300 to $400 per year.