Skype which has 124 million active users intends to grow it’s revenue generating business by increasing their customer-base and offering more premium services to paying users.

Read more at gigaom: http://gigaom.com/2010/08/09/skype-files-for-a-100-millionipo/

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 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’.

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.

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.

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.

Skype has been providing a proprietary peer-to-peer Voice over IP platform since 2003 and was bought by Ebay in September of 2005.

Fortune cites that ‘uneasy fit’ and the $3.1bn originally paid by Ebay as possible reasons for the sale.

Listed and reviewed in the article are Nokia’s own Gizmo, Truphone, EQO, Skype, fring and Yeigo
.

The article updates an earlier review of S60 Voice over IP applications.

No real detail or grit is given on the product although I would hope that it would be a SIP or at least standards-based system unlike Skype which is uses a proprietary method.

The service is said to be designed to ultimately be available for mobile devices with 3G or 4G connections so presumably the model would be direct connection or client/server connection rather than Skype’s P2P routing model.

Some more detail over in Om Malik’s article.

Previously, the flat-rate charging was only available to USA and Canada based Skype customers.

Also available is a plan with almost global coverage for $9.95/month.