Skype’s newly announced Mobile Partner Program for operators continues work it has done with mobile operators Verizon (US), KDDI au (Japan) and Hutchison 3 (UK). In each case Skype offered thin clients for mobile phones that talked to the Skype cloud through gateways hosted at the operator’s data centers. This meant lighter use of 3G broadband and deployment on a wider range of mobile phones.
Skype’s thin-client/fat-server approach moves most of the heavy bandwidth and processing to the operator-Skype gateways from the phone. Skype voice calls travel over the mobile voice channel using normal mobile quality, not on the mobile broadband data channel. Contrast this with the full Skype client like Skype for iPhone, where the mobile device is a node on the Skype network and voice, video and data travel over the wireless or Wi-Fi data channels. Full clients use Skype’s wideband audio codecs for cinema quality sound, where thin clients produce and consume normal, clipped, mobile phone sound quality.
So this is looking like three product tiers:
Skype Litemobile for 3G with light broadband coverage and low smartphone penetration.
Skype full clients for 3G and Wi-Fi.
Skype rich clients for 4G, ready for mobile video calling, video conferencing, and the latest smartphones.
P.S. Marketing thought leader and swing dancer B.L. Ochman must be picking up some extra traffic for her @whatsnext twitter feed and WhatsNextBlog.com.
Verizon Wireless preloads the Skype mobile app available for the Pantech Crux (a music phone without a keyboard), LG Octane (a messaging phone), and Samsung Zeal, all sub-$100 consumer handsets. This is routine. I’m just passing along the data point that VZW continues to extend Skype’s US brand.
Verizon Wireless is Skype’s prime partner in the United States, preinstalling Skype on Android and Blackberry handsets. Skype’s deal with VZW means your Skype voice calling minutes and voice call data aren’t charged against your monthly plan. That makes sense since Skype mobile doesn’t have any call data (calls flow over Verizon’s voice network) and Skype for Android uses the SILK codec to compress voice to a tiny minimum.
What happens when Verizon turns on 4G in 38 cities this year? In some places you’ll see 12 megabits per second download speeds. Phones with front facing cameras designed for video calling? Will that be the right vehicle for Skype to launch a handset client with video?
Today’s WSJ interview with CEO Ivan Seidenberg says Verizon is looking at tiered wireless broadband speeds in combination with usage caps. Must you buy a higher tier to reasonably use Skype video calling and video conferencing? Could an hour video call blow your monthly quota? Or will you miss your car payment when a video call runs long on your metered plan?
Rumor: Michael Arrington suspects minority Skype owner Andreessen Horowitz is buying Foursquare. I love 4sq. Robert Scoble has 8 suggestions for building more 4sq consumer/platform value as Yelp copies 4sq features. Meanwhile, I can’t wait for an enterprise version, the better to check in with colleagues, clients, suppliers, partners. The location-based-workplace is here, waiting to be updated, searchable, social, and easy to navigate. LBS checkins should do wonders for triggering face-to-face work conversations, adding people virtually to f2f conversations, and plain old space-shifting virtual conversations. A little Skype integration, foursquare?
Steve Jobs announced iOS4 and iPhone 4 at the Apple WWDC. They should make a better platform for iSkype: faster processor, longer battery life, front (VGA) and back (HD) video cameras, two microphones with noise reduction, multitasking, an improved display and now support for Bluetooth keyboards. This could mean better performance from Skype, the ability to stay connected to the Skype network all the time, even better audio than what Skype’s SILK codec offers, touch typing text chat, and Skype video calling.
Apple announced FaceTime, iPhone 4-to-iPhone 4 video calling. The spec for FaceTime is based on some open protocols and Apple will submit the suite to standards bodies. The rumor that Skype wanted to use FaceTime was downgraded to Skype noticing it.
ooVooreset its pricing for multiparty video calling. $0.10 per minute per person (e.g. $18/hour for three people above the two free included in the service) or $20 per month for six-way calling. Clues to Skype for iPhone’s mobile video charges? ooVoo has to pay for expensive servers and bandwidth since every stream goes through its servers at least once. Unlike ooVoo, Skype distributes its iPhone and desktop video streams peer-to-peer. Skype can undercut ooVoo ten-fold and still make money.
Skype hiredRick Osterloh from Motorola to head consumer product management. This includes desktop software (netbooks? tablets?), Skype.com, and Skype’s paid products (SkypeIn, SkypeOut, SMS, voicemail, WiFi access, etc.).
Verizon will put Skype on non-smart phones too, according to a news release. "Skype mobile from Verizon Wireless, currently available on 12 different smartphones, will expand to more handsets later this year, including several 3G Multimedia phones." Good for Skype: a lower price-point means more users will have access to Skype. via Florin
Skype will redesign its Skype mobile UI to pursue international callers. From the same release: "In addition to Spanish, Skype mobile will also be available in Korean and simple Chinese, providing more flexibility and the ability to communicate with people around the world. Skype mobile customers will soon see an enhanced user interface with a drop-down menu with flags for international dialing."
Juniper Research predicts 100 million mobile VoIP users by 2012, half in the North America and Europe. An analyst said "we also anticipate that several more traditional operators will have joined 3UK and Verizon in the US and developed relationships with mobile VoIP players such as Skype."
People are using Skype from conception to the old age home
Telemedicine was attacked in today’s Telegraph Herald, covering Dubuque, Iowa. A right-to-life advocate is afraid out of town doctors will prescribe RU486 to women in local Planned Parenthood clinics through a Skype-like videoconference.
Kids are using Skype for video play dates. In a few years it will be Skype pajama parties. Then Skype sex. I saw a difference between watching people shoot pool through a video monitor and, as I did tonight, watching a pool game in a local tiki bar. As vivid as the video gets, the view is frozen. When I move my head, my body, perspectives change and the part of my brain that thinks spatially tells me this is real, not a painting. So let’s be sure to keep kids catching colds from other kids, immersing them in face to face reality along with skyped conversations.
Meanwhile, check out Skypito: "Kids can finally safely chat on the Internet. Strangers and bad guys cannot reach them anymore." Uses Skype, naturally. Free, sponsored by EasyBits. This follows the classic blend of server based community and desktop based Skype plug-in. Meanwhile CNN readers who’ve never seen kids play together virtually objected strongly to video play dates.
Skype Lite: Skype is half-baked on Android and it’s too bad, because you could really do so much with a real version… At the moment, it’s OK for text chatting, but the voice calls don’t work. I’m getting a “not available in your region” error message (I’m in San Francisco).
Hubert, you’re running into the Verizon-Skype exclusive. Nexus One is only available from T-Mobile so no Skype mobile (at least the voice parts) for you. Count on being shut out this year and most of next year too.
Skype mobile (née Skype Lite) on your phone
is a thin client (no heavy processing or networking) that
talks to fat clients (similar to your desktop Skype)
running on gateway servers (running many copies of the fat clients and connected to the Internet too)
hosted at data centers operated by your mobile phone operator.
So your Nexus One Skype app can’t find a Skype server at T-Mobile. So you get an error message.
Perhaps your error message should read: “Not available with your mobile carrier” or “Not available with T-Mobile; Click http://verizonwireless.com/skypemobile/ for options” or “Have you seen the Droid Incredible? Time to switch!”
Following up from my 29 March “Skype is in Verizon Company Stores” post I checked up on my local VZW store. On a new street sign poster outside: “Droid Does Apps.”
In the poster detail (a globe with the Motorola Droid glaring at you with its Cylon eye), you can see Skype among thousands of apps.
The Droid display inside the store reprises the “app globe” theme without Skype.
The BlackBerry display in the back of the store.
Skype can “Put your business on the map” with a BlackBerry.
Verizon‘s Skype mobile apps for Android and Blackberry, tied to Verizon’s Wi-Fi, won’t roam internationally. The new Navoto GSM Gateway for Skype offers a way around this. The gateway connects your hometown wireless carrier to your on-the-road mobile phone.
Getting set up takes about ten minutes. Plug in the cables and install the software. Before your trip, take the SIM card from your mobile and put it into the gateway. When you arrive at your destination, get a local prepaid SIM and put it in your mobile phone. Then "pair" your new SIM by texting the gateway.
Once Navoto knows your new SIM, it starts to work. Calls to your mobile number at home are forwarded to you through a SkypeOut call.
You can make calls through Navoto’s ringback feature. Ping the gateway, it calls you using SkypeOut, you hear dialtone and make your call. You can also setup speed dial contacts to make it easy to reach phone numbers or a few of your Skype contacts.
Let’s look at the gear, in this case a prototype from a few months’ ago.
The front of the box has a slot for your local SIM card. By putting your mobile phone’s SIM card in the box, Navoto looks like your mobile phone to your wireless carrier.
You eject your SIM card poking a paper clip into a small hole.
The back of the box has (from left to right) a power jack, two RJ11 phone line jacks so you can keep your home phone connected, a USB port to connect to your home-town PC, and a connector for the GSM antenna.
The GSM antenna lets the box talk with your home-town wireless carrier.
The software running on your PC is a Skype plug-in, talking to your Skype desktop client. None of this works unless Skype for Windows is running.
The Navoto desktop software has many features.
Voice mail, call recording, voice messages, simple configurable IVR (phone menus), voicemails sent to your email account, SMS texting, and scheduled mode changes (home, work, offline, etc.).
Navoto Gateways are entering the distribution channel this week.
In my experience, the prototype gateway works as advertised.
However it is still very early for this product and I haven’t worked with final production versions of the software or the gear. Both the hardware and software are improving quickly in response to known bugs and feature requests. I experienced installation bugs with the email feature, for example. My version of the box, one of a handful of production tests, didn’t have final CE FCC certification, packaging, finish, labels, or documentation. I look forward to giving the finished product another look.
International calling is the largest (only?) growing telecom sector. Skypers called for more than twelve percent of all international minutes in 2009. Demand for cross-border calling is proven. How much is due to travel? How many billions of dollars does the international roaming market collect? Omri Navot aims to find out.
I’m testing Skype mobile on a Motorola Droid with Verizon. I tried to launch Skype while other apps were busy with my WiFi downloading email, news, feeds, activity streams, apps, maps, music, podcasts, and television shows.
I get an error. Its text reads:
"Skype mobile does not currently work on WiFi and requires switching to a Verizon Wireless data network connection. This may affect other apps using a WiFi connection."
You have two options: "Turn off WiFi" or "Exit".
Doesn’t the Droid let me have both Wi-Fi and the Verizon data connection running simultaneously? Apparently not.
Skype forces an either/or choice.
So it’s not nearly as attractive to keep Skype running in the background. You must squeeze all of your other activity through Verizon’s tiny wireless broadband channel, even if you have lots of available Wi-Fi connectivity at hand.
There’s no engineering reason why you couldn’t be connected to both networks at once (beyond battery consumption).
Where is this limit imposed? The Verizon Droid? Motorola Droids in general? All Android phones?
Verizon‘s go-to-market teams had Skype in place last week.
Employees were oriented. Six months’ ago these same employees had never tried Skype. Now they know a few talking points.
Demo Blackberry and Android phones had Skype installed and easy to find
Local test accounts with contacts were created for each demo phone
Information cards for the phones were updated with Skype listed as a feature of each phone (right above Bluetooth!)
A small Skype sign was with the phones
The in-store phone selector software now lists Skype as one feature among many.
Inventory comes with a shortcut to install the latest version of Skype mobile for Verizon, a thin client.
Seven things to improve:
Preload the whole Skype client, not just a download link. Conversion rates are much higher with a full preload.
International positioning. "Call your family" in Spanish, Tagalog, Chinese, Korean, Ethiopian and Portuguese (my neighborhood) on store-front posters.
Unbury Skype. Show Skype on the first page in the phone selector.
Enroll. "What Skype name would you like to use with your new phone?" in the check-out procedure.
Top up. Accept payments for Skype credits in the store.
Educate. Data sheets and flyers for customers to take, explaining Skype, Skype mobile, Skype To Go, Calling Plans, and how Skype mobile is different from Skype on PCs or iSkype.
Front of store posters showing video calling (whoops, not this year)
Great rollout to the company-owned stores. Now to check the reseller channel.
SKYPE MOBILE FOR VERIZON WIRELESS AVAILABLE THURSDAY Companies Deliver Expansive Global Calling Community and Free Skype-to-Skype Calls on the Most Reliable Wireless Network in the United States
LUXEMBOURG, Luxembourg; LAS VEGAS and BASKING RIDGE, N.J., United States – (Virtual Press Office) – From CTIA WIRELESS 2010® in Las Vegas, Verizon Wireless and Skype today announced Skype mobile™ will be available this Thursday, March 25, starting with nine Verizon Wireless 3G smartphones. Skype mobile uses the Verizon Wireless voice network for the wireless connection of the Skype-to-Skype calls, providing Verizon Wireless customers with a superior experience and top-notch call quality.
Beginning Thursday, new and existing Verizon Wireless customers with Android 3G smartphones and BlackBerry 3G smartphones can get Skype mobile in a number of ways. Visit www.verizonwireless.com/skypemobile or www.skype.com/go/mobile from a PC to enter the mobile phone number to receive a text message with a link to the application. Verizon Wireless customers can also text “SKYPE” to 2255 to receive the link. In addition, Android customers will be able to download the app from Android Market™. New BlackBerry customers will find the application on their 3G smartphones’ home screens in the Downloads folder when activated.
Skype mobile gives Verizon Wireless 3G smartphone users with data plans a simple new way to stay in touch with friends, family and business colleagues around the corner and around the world while on Verizon Wireless’ network. Skype mobile users can:
make and receive unlimited Skype-to-Skype voice calls to any Skype contact around the globe;
send and receive unlimited instant messages with other Skype users;
manage the Skype contact list directly from the mobile application; and
call international phone numbers at competitive Skype calling rates.
John Harrobin, senior vice president of digital media and marketing, noted, “Skype mobile will change the way mobile consumers in the United States make and receive calls. With an ‘always on’ capability, Skype mobile on your 3G smartphone means you never have to miss a call or make an appointment to connect with Skype users around the world. With Skype mobile, we’re untethering Skype users from their PCs and enabling them to stay connected – on the best wireless network in the country.”
Russ Shaw, general manager of Mobile for Skype, noted, “Skype mobile will deliver an unparalleled experience for Verizon Wireless customers. It will be the best way to enjoy unlimited conversations with Skype contacts all over the world at no extra cost. In addition, Skype mobile will allow people to easily and inexpensively make calls to landlines and mobiles abroad at Skype rates.”
Customers need a Verizon Wireless smartphone and data plan to use Skype mobile. Skype-to-Skype calls will not be charged against their monthly minute allowances or data plans. Verizon Wireless customers can visit www.skype.com to purchase Skype Credit to make Skype Out calls and make calls to international landline or mobile numbers.
Skype and Verizon Wireless have been working together to create this application specifically for Verizon Wireless customers and to take advantage of the most reliable wireless network in the United States.
Skype mobile will be available initially on millions of best-selling Verizon Wireless 3G smartphones, including the BlackBerry® Storm™ 9530, Storm2™ 9550, Curve™ 8330, Curve™ 8530, 8830 World Edition, and Tour™ 9630 smartphones, as well as DROID by Motorola, DROID ERIS™ by HTC and Motorola DEVOUR™.
Here’s the Say It Visually! whiteboard guide to Skype mobile on Verizon Wireless phones. Positioned as freeing you from your PC (the way, um, mobile phones do). Bonus points for unlimited Skype-to-Skype calling from your phone with your flat rate Verizon data plan. On YouTube.
Verizon Wireless And Skype To Unveil Skype mobile At CTIA WIRELESS 2010 In Las Vegas
03/22/2010
WHO: Verizon Wireless, the leading wireless provider in the United States, and Skype, the company with the software that enables the world’s conversations
WHAT: Verizon Wireless and Skype will hold a news conference during CTIA WIRELESS 2010® to unveil Skype mobile™. Speakers will include:
John Harrobin, senior vice president of digital media and marketing, Verizon Wireless
Russ Shaw, general manager of Mobile, Skype
WHERE: CTIA Press Conference Room: Room N241 – North Hall Las Vegas Convention Center 3150 Paradise Road Las Vegas, Nevada 89109
WHEN: 12:00 p.m. PDT on Tuesday, March 23, 2010
To listen to a teleconference of the news conference, participants may call: 877-883-4690 (United States and Canada) +1 706-758-5386 (international) Conference ID: 64218465
About Verizon Wireless Verizon Wireless operates the nation’s most reliable and largest wireless voice and 3G data network, serving more than 91 million customers. Headquartered in Basking Ridge, N.J., with 83,000 employees nationwide, Verizon Wireless is a joint venture of Verizon Communications (NYSE, NASDAQ: VZ) and Vodafone (LSE, NASDAQ: VOD). For more information, visit www.verizonwireless.com. To preview and request broadcast-quality video footage and high-resolution stills of Verizon Wireless operations, log on to the Verizon Wireless Multimedia Library at www.verizonwireless.com/multimedia.
About Skype Skype is software that enables the world’s conversations. Millions of individuals and businesses use Skype to make free video and voice calls, send instant messages and share files with other Skype users. Every day, people everywhere also use Skype to make low-cost calls to landlines and mobiles. Download Skype to your computer or mobile phone at skype.com.
Skype mobile for Verizon Wireless’s fast 4G LTE wasn’t available after January’s CES2011. You could leave your email for an alert but that was it. 
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