Skype Launches Its Mobile Phone Overseas
Erick Schonfeld
17 comments »
Skype’s anticipated mobile phone is now official. Britain’s mobile carrier 3 will start selling it on November 2 in the UK, and later this year in Australia, Austria, Denmark, Hong Kong, Italy, Ireland, Macau and Sweden. 
This will be the first mobile phone with Skype built in, meaning that calls to other Skype members are free. The phone will cost about $100 with a pay-as-you-go plan (for the non-Skype calls), or free with a monthly contract.
This is an enlightened move on the part of 3. If people are going to start bypassing the mobile carriers with free Internet calls, the carriers might as well get in front of the trend and start cannibalizing themselves. At least this way, 3 captures the non-Skype calls and wins loyalty points among its Skype-using subscribers. Anything that reduces customer churn is worth a try in the eyes of the carriers.
[For more on this story see TechCrunch UK]
Wow, there is going to be a major shake-up in the telecommunications industry. Vodafone and others would have to start thinking
Hope it comes to the US Soon….
Good .. $100.00 is way to cheap….
I’d consider getting one if it wasn’t on 3, which is kind of the poor cousin of the other mobile networks in the UK. Unfortunately, because of the lack of clout, it’s not going to persuade the other carriers to follow suit through market pressure. They’ll have to do so of their own accord.
Very cool. Last week Skype announced a partnership with MySpace, where Skype would be deeply integrated into the MySpace IM and opening the platform to MySpace’s 200MM users.
Seems like Skype is making all the right moves.
When are they bringing to Africa?
AOL is at least trying to do something.
http://call-out.aim.com/
forget this crap!
ZuP (ZunePhone) is getting closer, closer, closer…..
http://fakesteveballmer.blogspot.com
Thank goodness!
I’m so tired of paying $180 per month to Cingular. Complete collusion in that market. I realize that their are costs associated with that business, but come on, no need to try to make it back in 12 months:)
When a disruptive offering/technology gets introduced it is see you later time to the traditional incumbents.
The large RBOCS and Wireless Companies are SCUMBAGS! Couldn’t happen to a nicer bunch, eh.
BTW - I would be looking to short the America Movil stock once this gets any where near Latin America
“Overseas” may not the be right description for a company whose headquarters were in London until EBay bought it.
I must be missing the part where it lists wifi…
Great news… it’s cheap and actually a PHONE without all this extra useless crap that drives up pricing with little benefit to consumers.
Jon
So who pays for the internet access while the user talks to other Skype users over the phone? And who is getting that fee?
According to the details on the 3 site and various other sources the skype calls are directed through the GSM network for free. Therefore wherever you could make a normal call you could theoretically make a skype call.
http://three.co.uk/personal/pr....._phone.omp
The only stipulation is that you have to top up your account with £10 of airtime each month. This airtime is used for standard calls and SMS.
The customer service on 3 is truly awful but I’m very tempted to get one of these for contacting relatives abroad more easily.
Unfortunately, however, it appears that other Skype features in this phone are disabled. For example you CANNOT make a SkypeOut call (perhaps for obvious) reasons from the phone. More interestingly, however, is that SkypeIn is not supported either. Frankly this is a HUGE disadvantage in my opinion as I have numerous contacts in United States who would like to contact me in US and would rather not pay the exorbitant fees of 20 cents a minute to a call a UK mobile.