Skype has made a deal with Verizon Wireless which will see the peer-to-peer Voice over IP service made available over Verizon’s 3G and WiFi networks for mobile devices.

The deal will allow free* Skype-to-Skype calling over the Verizon network.

As The Inquirer points out, major mobile telecom network providers have been reluctant to embrace VoIP communications due to the effective change in business model which it could herald. The deal which is to be offered to US Verizon Wireless customers is seen as being a big push to take marketshare from AT&T who are only providing Skype for their iPhone customers.

*free meaning the call itself between the Skype clients, obviously the network costs remain.

It is being reported here, there and everywhere that Orange & O2 are having a bit of a strop about Nokia’s integrating Skype with their new N97 smartphone handset.

It seems that the two operators are worried that the bundling of a voice-over-ip application with a smartphone would lose them voice-call revenue on their networks. The supposition being that users would opt for ‘cheap’ ‘unlimited’ data plans. From where I stand, ‘cheap’ ‘unlimited’ data plans are rather ‘invisible’ and I can’t really see voip being a lot cheaper in most cases except where the phone could be used with a non-network WiFi connection. Perhaps this is what actually worries O2 and Orange.

The cost of data plans also vary from country to country and both Orange and O2 are international operators so presumably there must be markets where their data plans are currently particularly cheap.

Naturally, if O2 and Orange choose to block the use of the N97 or it’s voice over ip abilities, they risk upsetting their customer base who may move to other operators such as T-Mobile who are said to be more ‘voip-friendly’.

EUROJUST has deleted their previous press release which suggested they were actively persuing voice over IP bugging methods and technologies in the light of a request from Italian judicial authorities.

In a new press release dated the 25th February which again mentions Skype directly, EUROJUST state their position as having had their first strategic meeting on internet telephony in 2006 which had included Skype SA as participants.

“There was a positive message from the Skype representatives during the meeting, showing their commitment to cooperate with the law enforcement authorities in the fight against serious, cross-border organised crime. The participants took into consideration that new VoIP technologies could offer a possible communication channel to criminals and criminal networks.”

Whether Skype’s level of co-opertation extends to handing over the encryption keys to their proprietary voip protocol is a good question. As with most proprietary systems, it is usually impossible for the end-user to tell whether there are any back-doors built-in by the manufacturer.

It may also mean that EUROJUST wants to avoid frightening off the fledgling European Voice over IP industry which, in the current recession, could prove extremely valuable to the European economy.

NOTE: This article has been superceded by this update: http://www.voip-point.net/2009/02/27/eurojust-voip-interception-update/

EUROJUST, the European Union’s judicial cooperation unit, is to examine the possibilities of bugging voip calls within the EU.

This comes after news that Italian law-enforcement agencies have requested help from EUROJUST in tapping voip calls made by criminals in Italy.

EUROJUST mention Skype by name but also include their intention to examine other voip systems in their press release. In the case of Skype which uses a proprietary protocol and encryption system, EUROJUST would presumably need to coerce Skype who are incorporated in Luxembourg to hand over encryption keys or create a ‘back door’ in their software to allow government wiretapping.

In the alternate case of SIP or similar VoIP communications, many calls may currently be transmitted ‘in the clear’ and be easy to intercept by simply capturing the packet stream for later playback. In cases where encryption is employed either in the protocol or the connection level, wiretapping may prove to be considerably more difficult as even the fact that a call is being made over a normally-encrypted data connection may be difficult or impossible to detect.

At the GSMA World Congress in Barcelona, Nokia announced that it would be partnering with Skype to provide Voice over IP functionality on future handsets starting with the forthcoming Nokia N97 smartphone.

Rather than running Skype as a seperate application for Symbian, Nokia will be integrating Skype with the built-in address book to allow simple and direct calling/answering of Skype contacts.

The Nokia N97 handset provides both 3G and 802.11b/g WiFi connectivity so owners should be able to use Skype wherever they are.

Skype is a proprietary peer-to-peer VoIP protocol and as such can only communicate with other Skpe devices. There is no word yet as to whether the Nokia N97 or other future Nokia handsets will be supporting any open VoIP protocols such as SIP which would allow for greater interoperability.