Cornered!
Cornered! is a blog devoted, most of the time anyway, to telecommunications: local and global issues, technology, people and trends from the perspective of someone who's been reporting, analysing and commenting on the industry since the dark ages (BC - before competition). Sometimes serious, sometimes flippant, sometimes frivolous. Controversial, analytical, informative, amusing, but never boring; a vehicle for examinations of important issues and observations on my encounters and experiences in an industry where polarised views and hyperbole are the norm.
Follow the Australian Telecommunications scene NEWSLETTER- FREE TRIAL

Blog

Technology news and Jobs arrow Cornered! arrow Fifteen global telcos team to take on Skype - not such a daft idea
Fifteen global telcos team to take on Skype - not such a daft idea E-mail
by Stuart Corner   
Friday, 09 May 2008
The most spectacular rumour doing the rounds of telecoms and IT news sites right now must be that 15 of the world's biggest carriers - AT&T, BT, Deutsche Telecom, NTT etc - are planning to launch their own free VoIP service to compete with, and hopefully destroy, Skype. Does this have any legs?

Well, for a start, its provenance is pretty good: it comes from ThinkEquity analyst Anton Wahlman, who has a track record of prescience. According to blogger Om Malik he "is full of theories that have eventually been proven right," most notably that that Cisco would buy Scientific Atlanta.

Wahlman is suggesting that all 15 participants would offer a common VoIP client that their customers would install on a PC and which would enable them to call free to any one of the subscribers of the 15 participants that was logged on - exactly the same way that Skype works. A mobile client was also suggested.

If you get beyond the initial reaction that these guys are shooting themselves in the foot and think about it, there are many sound reasons for such a move. Number one: the inexorable growth of Skype which is draining their revenues anyway, not to mention other VoIP services which are more akin to traditional PSTN services. Like any network, the more people who are on it the more useful it becomes and with Skype now running at over 300 million registered users it's very useful indeed.

Second there is the rapidly increasing functionality of Skype that brings it more and more into direct competition with traditional phone services: such as last month's release, in beta of a mobile 'thin' client that works on about 50 of the most popular Java-enabled mobile phones from Motorola, Nokia, Samsung and Sony Ericsson.  This came only days after Skype announcing that it had extended 'unlimited' international calling to 34 nations containing over a third of the world's population.

Skype is truly becoming a force to be reckoned with, but it nevertheless has some significant weaknesses which leave it open to attack, especially from established players such as the big telcos. CONTINUED



 
< Next story in category   Previous story in the category >
iTWire user statistics Visitors last 30 days
694,279
Subscribers 15,210
#1 independent technology news advertise here
  •   *  
  • Search
  • AdvSeach
  • Login
  • Events
  • FreeStuff

- Advertisement -

Featured Whitepapers

Cornered! - Telecoms blog
Cornered! is a blog on all things tele-communication from the perspective of one who has observed, analysed commented and reported on the industry since the dark ages (BC - before competition).
Follow iTWire on Twitter

About iTWire

iTWire is all about technology news, information, jobs and community for the IT and telecommunications industry professional. Subscribe to our free ICT daily newsletter