Skype lies, breaks "Skype-to-Skype"calls are free promise
skypejournal.com
skypejournal.com
Now that phones that run apps and have internet connections are popular the game is changed entirely. They had to give it away for free before because it wasn't as useful. When you can use this on the go it becomes much more useful and they will see many more people using it.
When things change that drastically sometimes you have to re-evaluate your business model.
Not if you're selling to humans.
Humans value things other than price and features. There are goods that will only sell if they cost considerably more than the cost of production.
The efficient market hypothesis may be true, but only if you consider all costs and benefits and even then, the value of the benefits is not static and you need to account for other things that people might do with their money.
( He's Finnish and his English contains mistakes that are typical for Finns, which is unfortunate, and could be avoided )
Or maybe they're just grubbing for money.
This stinks of a money grab on Skype's behalf.
With that said, if this ends up only applying to AT&T, and not other countries iPhone apps, then its clear who's to blame. I didn't see anything in the article that noted this was limited to AT&T.
Skype has no marginal cost if I make that iPhone 3G call. Why are they charging separately?
Presumably subscriptions will apply to future use of Skype-to-Skype on Blackberry, Nokia, and Android phones.
If I were AT&T and I could start charging Skype for 3G calls, I would do it.
Of course it is. Packets should be packets, if you don't have the network to handle the packets, lower caps or raise prices, don't start making people pay based on the kind of packets they send or receive. It is precisely a NN issue.
> " We need to start clamping down a little" issue (I imagine)
"Clamping down a little" is not a problem, "clamping down on (VOIP|Gaming|long-lived downloads|P2P streams)" is
> "clamping down on (VOIP|Gaming|long-lived downloads|P2P streams)" is
P2P streams and long-lived downloads have two major things in common: heavy bandwidth over long periods of time. Those activities, in particular, are considerably heavier on the network than, say, downloading a single, or even a series of webpages.
One way the major carriers can do this is by disallowing certain kinds of activities. For example, as seen on the iPhone, users are not allowed to download files more than 10MB in size. That isn't a case of "what" a person can download, but instead an issue of "how much" a person can download in a small period of time. Is that still 'net neutrality'? And, if not, then how is VOIP any different?
(This is under the presupposition that the price increase was ATT's doing, and they're not doing it because it's taking away from their profits; but instead they're fearing that VOIP will cause an even greater tax on their already strained network.)
> Is that still 'net neutrality'?
If you disallow specific network activities, yes it's a network neutrality issue.
> users are not allowed to download files more than 10MB in size
I do not believe that is correct. The AppStore application is configured to not download applications over 20MB (up from 10MB since February) over 3G, and the iTunes application does the same thing for music or podcasts, but that's a setting at the application level. I don't think e.g. Safari refuses to download files more than 10 (or 20) MB, or that the connection cuts off with a corrupted file.
> That isn't a case of "what" a person can download, but instead an issue of "how much" a person can download in a small period of time.
No, because again you're disallowing specific activities (e.g. VOIP, P2P) not certain network behaviors (data streams of over 1MB for over 10mn for instance). Therefore your network management is about activities (traffic shaping) not resources (resources management) which makes it an NN issue. Because you're arbitrarily preventing the users of the network from performing specific activities even though the network itself can handle them.
> This is under the presupposition that the price increase was ATT's doing, and they're not doing it because it's taking away from their profits; but instead they're fearing that VOIP will cause an even greater tax on their already strained network.
I don't believe that for a second, but again if the issue is resources, then write policies in terms of resources, not activities.
> why should Skype arbitrarily charge us a second time?
1) because they can; 2) who's going to stop them (definitely not carries who gain on that agreement)
Now I'm just hoping someone comes out with a iChat/AIM/Jabber/GTalk-like P2P standard for voice (does this already exist?).
Im not sure im going to do this but it's tempting even more when skype will be able to run in the background on my 3GS when 4.0 comes out. I would save myself $10 to $20 a month doing this. THe MiFi I can carry in my wallet.
Skype-to-Skype calls will always be free
So what if they've introduced charges? If someone else provides this for free, go there. If not, cough up!
"Skype-to-Skype calls will always be free but there are a few things that cost a little such as calling mobiles and ordinary phones when you want to get hold of your friends that havent started using Skype yet."
But I believe charging is the only was that network operators will allow Skype to work at all. It would be good if they explained it that way.
This may also be a condition imposed by Apple, because people with unlimited data plans would use Skype instead of their (limited) included airtime, which I'm sure doesn't make cellular partners too happy.
I agree though, that this move may be more political than anything else w.r.t cellular partners.
Oh and if you bought an iPhone and can't access the cost-free VoIP solution? That'll teach you to buy locked-down hardware, you idiot[1].
1: this description does not apply to people who took an eyes-open decision to buy locked-down hardware, knowing it was locked down, realising the consequences and accepting them.
Nothing, cabalamat is just hating.
As far as "competing VoIP solutions", it's not like Apple is competing in the VoIP arena; they seem perfectly content to let other companies battle it out.
Skype's main attraction is not the technology, but the network effect and it's closed system. You could make a cool SIP client for Android/iPhone/etc. but it wouldn't matter because you wouldn't be able to talk to 90% of the mundane's who only have Skype.
Think about it: early adopters (techies) start using a free competitor (or several free competitors). They get their less tech-savvy friends and family to switch. The rest of the world follows. It's easy to explain ("It's like Skype"), the carrot is obvious ("except it's free"), and the lock-in is minimal - download a new client, enter the contact you want to call, and you're done. There's no chat history, or complex social network, or tons of uploaded pictures, etc. etc., to keep people from switching.
I don't think the "mundanes" really use Skype, they still use regular phones. If someone's savvy enough to use Skype, they're savvy enough to switch to a free competitor if it's good enough.
You are wrong based on my experiences. Skype is used for free international calls all over the world by "mundanes". Immigrants use it to communicate to their home countries. A local immigrant-run mom&pop store in my Helsinki neighborhood is even advertising Skype-calls in addition to normal international calls.
And I think that Skype has some brand value as it's been used for these very personal calls between family members.
However, you are right that the network effect for Skype is not that strong: As it's used for "calling home", a hypothetical better and "cheaper" Skype-competitors can spread family-by-family, as it's easy to replace only two endpoints. But it will nevertheless take several years, which gives Skype time to adjust their strategy.
Skype is an IM network. I really hate that I have to use it sometimes for that.
The only reason skype is the king right now is because nobody has motivation to switch to anything else. Skype works, without hassle. It's a good product.
The moment it ceases to be a good product, though, there is nothing holding them in their marketplace. The world can hop onto a new piece of p2p VOIP software in the blink of an eye.
I agree. Having said that, it's not difficult to change to another system. I'm a member of an organisation that has weekly VoIP conferences. We used to use Skype, but that proved problematic when more than 5 people were involved. So we (fairly painlessly) moved to another solution. Other people, if they find Skype painful, will move too.