The website of Alex Kinch, live from London
Posts tagged skype
Volunteers wanted, must be willing to lock up their old mobile
Jun 17th
Are you fed up with your old mobile? Willing to swap it for a shiny new handsets for a few weeks? We’ve three brand new 3 handsets, three cages, and are looking for three volunteers willing to lock up their old mobile and try 3 and Skype for a fortnight.
Here’s the deal. We’ve teamed up with the guys at 3mobilebuzz to promote free Skype calling on 3. The challenge? 3 want to lock up your mobile, and replace it with a model that’s a little more ’3′ (yes I know, terrible pun).
We’ve got an INQ1, Sony Ericsson C510, and a Nokia E63 – all with a 3 SIM card and free calls for you to try for a couple of weeks. There’s also a cute little ‘phone cell’ (again, another terrible pun) for you to lock up your old handset.
The catch? There isn’t one really – all we ask in return is you take care of the handset, don’t flush it down the toilet, and bring it back in a couple of weeks. Oh, and we want to know how you got on, so we’ll be asking to write a little piece about how you found your two weeks with your new handset, free Skype calling and 3 in general.
Interested? Drop a comment on this post telling us what your current mobile is, and which phone you’d like to try, and we’ll pick three lucky people and sort the rest.
Update: Just a small note to apologise to Lloyd at the Tuttle Club, where I was planning to give out the handsets. Lloyd has quite rightly pointed out that commercial organisations wishing to do promotional work at Tuttle need to agree it with him before hand, and pay a sponsorship fee. As I just happened to be there for something else on Friday morning, it sort of made sense. Neither myself or anyone associated with this blog have received any renumeration for this promotion from 3, 3mobilebuzz, or their associated companies – and we aren’t being paid for it. However I understand there are firm procedures in place, and apologise if anyone thought I was trying to circumvent them.
If you’re interested in a handset, add your comment and we’ll get in touch to get an address of where we can post it to.
T-Mobile to unblock VoIP – for a price
Jun 3rd
Remember the ongoing saga of T-Mobile and their blocking of VoIP applications like Skype? Well there’s good news – they will be allowing VoIP traffic on their network.. but for a price.
An announcement by T-Mobile’s parent company Deutsche Telekom late last night trumpeted a new ‘option’ for those on Combi and Complete packages which would allow ‘customers in poessession of the necessary equipment to call via the Internet’. Depending on package (or to put it another way, how much money you’re already giving T-Mobile every month) the unnamed option starts at EUR 9.95 a month – and will be available from this summer.
Georg Pölzl, Managing Director of T-Mobile Deutschland commented: “In this way, we are building a bridge between the different customers’ needs for the most competitively-priced and innovative services. It would not be fair to customers who don’t use VoIP if these additional costs were to be shared across all customers. For this reason, we are making it possible to use Internet telephony via optional rates, while keeping it otherwise barred.”
Hang on a second, you’re thinking. Surely this is just a way to replace some of the voice revenue the operator would invariably lose to the VoIP services? Back to Georg, and in a rare moment of honesty for a mobile operator said: “All network operators have invested many billions of euros in the roll-out of their networks in recent years. These investments were based on rate costings with income from voice telephony and mobile data.
“If this basis is no longer certain, then neither is the operational future of the networks. T-Mobile wants to continue offering its customers state-of-the-art technology in future and needs a reliable basis to do so”
Whether this will appease Viviane Reding, the EU Telecoms Commissioner – who in April threatened legislation to ‘force’ mobile operators to open up their networks to VoIP services – remains to be seen.
3 offer free texts and internet to prepay customers
May 29th
Customers of 3′s pay as you go service in the UK will get a bundle of free texts and free internet usage everytime they top-up, the company has announced.
From 1st June 2009 customers will also get free 3-to-3 calls, free Skype calls, free access to voicemail and use of Windows Live Messenger even if they have no credit on their account.
Liz Richardson, Head of Pay As You Go at 3, says: “So often Pay As You Go customers are overlooked and aren’t offered the same great value packages and perks as those who pay monthly. 3Pay will give customers access to a range of features that will last for 90 days, three-times longer than the other networks. In a ground-breaking move, our freebies don’t stop just because a customer has used up all their credit.
“We want to change mobile forever and with a network designed and built for the Mobile Internet, we can offer our Pay As You Go customers free internet and free internet calls with Skype, not just bog-standard text and talk bundles. All our Pay As You Go customers will get a 150MB mobile internet allowance. That’s enough to check Bebo or Facebook over 100 times, view 200 web pages or send 1,600 twitters, every day for three months.”
Brits expected to cut back on mobile spend
May 12th
An analysis of consumer spending habits has discovered already hard-up Brits are planning to reduce their communications spending even further in the next six months.
According to Booz & Company, a quarter of the 1,800 questioned have already cut back on their communication and media spending, with a further 26% saying they’d trim the bills further in the next six months.
44% of consumers said they’d consider using VoIP-based phone services such as Skype to cut their calling spend, and 43% said they’d use their landline more.
Meanwhile, in more bad news for mobile operators, handset manufacturers and retailers, 45% said they’d consider delaying the purchase of a new handset, 43% would switch to a cheaper contract if they had a choice, and a quarter claimed they’d even give up using their mobile altogether.
Speaking to Reuters, Michael Peterson – head of BOoz & Company’s UK CMT practice, said: “Operators need to not only review their product and service offerings in the short term, but also think about their long-term strategy, as customers are becoming more savvy about the way they purchase and use services. The operators that can recognize and adapt to these changes will emerge strongest from the recession”.
via UK telcos face price-savvy consumers | Technology | Reuters.
eBay to float off Skype in 2010
Apr 15th
After the recent news that the founders of now eBay-owned Skype wanted to buy back the company comes the announcement that eBay are planning to IPO the division in 2010.
“Skype is a great stand-alone business with strong fundamentals and accelerating momentum,” said eBay Inc.’s President and CEO, John Donahoe. “But it’s clear that Skype has limited synergies with eBay and PayPal. We believe operating Skype as a stand-alone publicly traded company is the best path for maximizing its potential. This will give Skype the focus and resources required to continue its growth and effectively compete in online voice and video communications. In addition, separating Skype will allow eBay to focus entirely on our two core growth engine – e-commerce and online payments – and deliver long-term value to our stockholders.”
Skype founders want to buy their company back
Apr 11th
The founders of Skype, Niklas Zennstrom and Janus Friis, are apparently planning to buy back the service from current owner eBay.
The service, which was sold to the Internet auction company in 2005 for over $3 billion,has more than 405 million registered users, and bought in $145 million of revenue for eBay in the last three months of 2008.
via Skype Founders Seek to Buy Service Back From eBay – NYTimes.com.
EU may force mobile operators to open up
Apr 11th
A report published by German newspaper Handelsblatt says the EU Telecoms Commissioner is planning to take action over mobile operators who block services like Skype from their network.
The publication says EU Telecoms Commissioner Viviane Reding stated that action should be taken against the carriers to stop them blocking ‘innovative services’.
At present it’s up to each EU member state regulator to act on such blocks, although T-Mobile’s recent decision to ban their German customers from installing Skype on their handset may prompt the EU to look at possible antitrust charges against the carrier.
via TG Daily – EU may force wireless carriers to allow VoIP on cellphones.
AT&T: Skype’s ok, we’re just not ready for it
Apr 8th
It’s been a hectic few days, so perhaps I forgot to post something about AT&T, Skype and the iPhone. I’ve already written about T-Mobile blocking the app on their German network
, but it appears AT&T is going to be doing the same.
At a Q&A session last week at CTIA their CEO tried to clarify the situation – and to be honest really ended up shooting himself in the foot.
Ralph de la Vega of AT&T Mobility said that basically they’re cool with VOIP on their wireless network – just come back when they’re ready to roll with their LTE network. Oh, and in the meantime they might just decide to play nice once they’ve finished upgrading to HSDPA 7.2 (they’re on HSDPA 3.6 at the moment).
via CTIA 2009: AT&T Wireless OK With Skype, In The Future – Gearlog.
Skype vs Truphone – the simple iPhone test
Apr 5th
Both Truphone and Skype have iPhone clients now. Both claim to have ‘unlimited’ packages. So who should you go with? Putting narrowband-versus-wideband, open-versus-closed codecs, shiny websites and PR spin aside for a minute, let’s look at pricing and terms and conditions. For comparison, prices are in British Pounds and include VAT where applicable.
|
Service |
Truphone Unlimited |
Skype Unlimited World |
|
Monthly Subscription: |
£9.99 |
£7.99 |
|
Landline calls: |
38 countries |
36 countries |
|
Mobile calls: |
9 countries |
4 countries |
|
Limits: |
60 minutes/call 3,000 minutes/month |
6 hours/day 50 numbers/day 10,000 minutes/month |
Skype are clearly the winner when it comes to limits – Truphone’s lock-down at 3,000 minutes a month is pitiful compared to Skype’s 10,000 minutes. In addition, there is no call length limit at 60 minutes. They’re also the winner on price by a whole two quid. Admittedly Truphone beat them by two countries on the places you can call landlines, and five on mobile, but if you take into account the extra cost and much lower limits, it’s negligible.
I won’t do my usual rant about the word ‘unlimited’ and it’s use to describe something with limits – apart from it being a contradiction in terms I believe telecoms and Internet companies (the guiltiest parties in this dictionary redefining debacle) have been allowed to pull the wool over consumers eyes for too long.
Update/disclaimer: I haven’t tried either service on an iPhone as I don’t have one – although I’m a self-confessed Mac fanboi I’m still happy with my E71 thanks. Oh, and I have previously worked with Truphone on non-iPhone-related projects.
VOIP providers to EU: stop the block
Apr 4th
Sparked by the recent news that T-Mobile Germany will block the installation of Skype on their customers iPhones, Reuters reports that an industry group has called on the EU to adopt policies to allow open access to mobile networks.
The Voice on the Net (VON) coalition Europe, whose members include Skype, Google, Microsoft and Intel argues that such blocks limit consumer choice.
In a statement, the group said: “Blocking of voice applications on mobile devices, such as the announcement of T-Mobile to block Skype on iPhones in Germany, is highly detrimental for consumer welfare in Europe.”
via VoIP providers call on EU to ensure free access | Deals | Regulatory News | Reuters.
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