The Skype Story - The Australian Connection
Friday, I was listening to Ken Rutkowski's KenRadio streaming broadcast (which btw you can listen to on a PPC using a Wi-Fi connection--just another experiment with the Axim X3i), and he was joined by Jason Romney visiting from Australia. I sent him an email asking about VoIP in Oz, and he sent back this story from The Sydney Morning Herald.
Skype is free software that allows peer-to-peer file sharing, but in this case it provides free VoIP phone calls to other members in the network. This company started by Niklas Zennstrom and Janus Friis, who created Kazaa but sold it when legal pressure from the music industry started to mount, say they have 4.6 million customers using their Skype phone software.
It was subsequently sold in 2002 to Sydney-based Sharman Networks. This article points to the controversy this has created: Some analysts predict internet telephony could prove to be the "killer application" that will fuel demand for home broadband connections. That puts companies like Telstra [the major Aussie telco] in a bind. It wants to sell broadband to as many homes as possible, but will fear the loss of phone customers that could result.
VoIP Watch opines on a recent story about Skype:
Reports in BoardWatch are that Skype is working with the current parent of Kazaa to integrate a file sharing on a P2P basis. Ouch.
That could be the fastest way to get the regulators into the fray once copyrighted content starts being moved back and forth, in my opinion.
It's important to note that Skype is working on a business model where people could make calls to any phone number for a fee, similar to Vonage. As I've mentioned already, US telcos such as Qwest and ATT&T are aggressively supporting VoIP. The are issues that still need to be addressed such as support for 911 or location functions which are currently absent. Sprint and other cellular carriers are offering Wi-Fi installations, which also could be competitors in this market. All this is good news for the handset manufacturers and the consumers who will much choice when it comes to negotiate a contract for VoIP.
7:41:19 AM 
|
