The Black Box

[Chris McConnel]

April 06, 2004

Bypassing the Mobile Carriers

     • AP: Skype Going Mobile. The peer-to-peer phone  
        program Skype, which lets computer users make  
        free calls to each other anywhere in the world,  
        is going mobile, with a version being released  
        Tuesday for Wi-Fi-equipped digital assistants. 

I've been in a two-day gathering about the future of mobile communications, and one of the issues has been whether Wi-Fi and its successors will open up a bypass opportunity that causes big trouble for the mobile carriers. The answer was obviously yes, and the announcement by Skype makes that even clearer.

Now the question arises which maker of mobile handsets will sell a model that switches back and forth from Wi-Fi voice over IP to the mobile network. This is what users will want, but the carriers have huge clout over the handset manufacturers.

The market is moving, fast. I wonder if the carriers are smart enough to move with it.

• posted by Dan Gillmor 02:04 AM
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