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.

Fortune is speculating that Skype may be place up for sale by their owners Ebay.

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.

S60tips.com has an updated article listing VoIP applications suitable for use with the S60 smartphone platform.

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.

gigaom.com carries word that the big global Telcos such as AT&T, British Telecom, Deutsche Telecom, NTT etc could be working together to create a ‘Skype rival’ for 2009.

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.

According to Voip Watch Skype are now offering global POTS calling package for a monthly flat-rate.

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.