Telstra has revealed the addition of almost one million new mobile services in the six months to December 2011, but Sensis revenues plummeted 24 percent in 12 months.
Skype has taken another small but not insignificant step toward enabling it to become a user's primary telephone service: by signing a co-marketing agreement with iSkoot, a company that has developed software for mobile phones that enables them to be used to make and receive Skype calls.
The software will be promoted to handset manufacturers for possible pre-loading onto new handsets and to cellular service providers.
Jacob Guedalia, CEO of iSkoot, said: "This agreement benefits everyone, from handset manufacturers and carriers to the tens of millions of Skype users worldwide. By connecting cell and smart phones to Skype, iSkoot software allows handset vendors and mobile operators to gain new PC calling minutes and increase ARPU. Meanwhile, Skype users will enjoy the benefits of Skype on their cell phone.
iSkoot software enables users to receive and make Skype calls on their mobile phone via the cellular networks. Skype voicemail, however, must be de-activated.
Once a cellphone has the iSkoot software installed on it, the user can see their Skype contact lists and call them just as they do from a PC. They can also place outgoing calls to PSTN numbers at SkypeOut rates and receive Skype-to Skype calls from other Skype users.
The downside is that the final link in the communications chain uses the normal cellular network voice channel, so for every call they make users must pay their normal cellular charges. For SkypeOut calls, this is in addition to the normal SkypeOut charge. They also require GPRS or another packet data service to enable their buddy list to be kept up to datee.
The cost of the cellular hop on an incoming call, which is paid to the cellular operator by iSkoot, is recouped by iSkoot from the user's SkypeOut account.
Few details of the co-marketing agreement were announced, iSkoot in a press release said: " As part of the agreement, Skype will certify iSkoot's mobile solution for making and receiving Skype calls on mobile phones. Once certified the product will be available for download from the iSkoot web site."
This software has been available, but without Skype certification, for some time. Users can install it on their own compatible cellphones, register with ISkoot and start using it. iSkoot launched its service, independent of Skype in February, by making use of the Skype API.
iSkoot presently works on Motorola, Nokia and Sony Ericsson phones that run J2ME, The company says it intends to add support for other J2ME phones including Treo and BlackBerry. The service is presently available only on US cellular networks. iSkoot also intends to support other free PC-PC VoIP services such as GoogleTalk.
David Bass
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