Skype announced flat fee unlimited calling plans to 34 countries across the world. Skype claims the new plans reach over a third of the world’s population. Subscribers can select specific countries or regions for the unlimited plans. They can also select all 34 countries to include in the unlimited plan. The plans range from just under $5/month to close to $15/month, depending on which countries/regions are selected. There is no long term contract associated with the plans.

Sony announced the availability of a skype client on its PSP portable game player. Skype will be available on the PSP-2000 series, and will allow players to use the PSP as a phone, with skype as the underlying carrier and wireless Internet as the connectivity pipe. PSP players can download the skype client to their device later this month.

Skype and MySpace are partnering to allow MySpace members to use Skype as a communications tool on their MySpace profile. MySpace has 120 million members across 20 countries. The partnership will allow MySpace members who are also Skype subscribers to insert a Skype button/widget in their MySpace profile, providing VoIP connectivity. PC-to-PC calling will be free, but MySpace will introduce a number of revenue generating "premium" features such as personal phone numbers, voice mail, call forwarding, and PC-to-landline/wireless calling. Terms of the partnership have MySpace and Skype sharing revenue.

This partnership illustrates the growing influence of web 2.0 on traditional telecom. Web 2.0 applications further erode the usefulness of traditional landline telephony, especially among youth. As more and more subscribers utilize web applications for social networking and entertainment consumption, their desire to incorporate communications functionality into those experiences increases significantly. This MySpace/Skype partnership is a perfect example of that. While it’s too early to tell the impact of this announcement (execution of these partnerships is always a wildcard), it does shed light on the possibilities that Web 2.0 offers telecom. It challenges traditional telecom carriers to recognize that their business is evolving – and quickly. Sure, we always talk about this evolution on conference panels and webinars, but here is proof positive. Traditional carriers should recognize that Skype, and companies like them, including Jajah, don’t have to be the only Web 2.0 players. Couldn't this partnership announcement just as easily have been between MySpace and Verizon? Maybe, maybe not - it all depends on your perspective. Seems to me, Verizon's 60 million+ wireless subscribers (not to mention their partner Vodaphone's global reach) would add tremendous value to this proposition. One thing is certain. As mass markets become more Web 2.0 savvy, telecom carriers will need to be proactive to ensure they don't entirely lose this opportunity to Skype and others.

Recent news out of eBay is that skype hasn’t turned out to be the goldmine that they hoped. Skype co-founder and CEO Niklas Zennstrom stepped down as CEO and eBay wrote off $1.4 billion of the original $2.6 billion Skype investment. You really have to feel for Zennstrom and his co-founders. Instead of walking away with $1.7 billion (per the incentives in the original buy out deal), they now only receive $530 million. I guess they’ll be anxiously awaiting the next Wal-Mart circular. This recent news adds to the mounting bad news surrounding stand alone VoIP players like Vonage and SunRocket. Is this recent example proof positive that VoIP will only flourish within the walls of established status quo companies like Comcast and Verizon? Or is this more a case of eBay “fumbling” with the jewel that skype could have become?

The troubles that stand alone VoIP companies have faced over the past year or so are, well, “troubling.” Vonage, clearly seen as a threat by traditional telecom carriers, has seen their legal bills increase exponentially as they fight multiple patent infringement suits. SunRocket could not generate enough cash flow to sustain itself. And now skype’s parent is admitting that their original vision of integrating skype’s technology and subscriber base into their active “community” has not materialized. At least not in an adequate return on investment sense. Perhaps there is a hard lesson to be learned here by all involved, including VoIP start ups. The lesson may be that beyond those of us that work in the communications industry, meaning your average consumer, VoIP is simply viewed as cheap long distance. Not as some revolutionary new way to communicate with potentially life changing experiences. I think we in the communications industry are guilty at times of believing our own “powerpointware” (or maybe drinking our own “kool aid”). If VoIP is indeed viewed as merely cheap long distance, then it will be very difficult to build a sustainable business around it alone. It may only survive as a part of something larger. I am certainly not discounting the tremendous value that IP brings to a service provider. But I am questioning whether companies can put VoIP at the center of their value proposition and survive over the long term.

There is little doubt that the future of telecom lies in wireless. Just ask Randall Stephenson, CEO of AT&T. "Wireless is the core of the business now," Stephenson told USA Today in a recent article. This future reality does not mean the death of wireline telephony. Wireline circuits will simply migrate to IP enabled broadband pipes which deliver content of all types, voice included. But wireless connectivity will soon become the status quo. This ongoing migration to wireless ubiquity creates huge operational challenges and perhaps, glorious business opportunities. Those potential opportunities are not going unnoticed by non traditional wireless service providers, who are increasingly eyeing the ownership of wireless spectrum as a hedge for the future. We often forget that the cable industry is sitting on a wide swath of wireless spectrum (unrelated to their Pivot Wireless joint venture) gained from the last AWS spectrum auction. The upcoming 700 Mhz auction has the rumor mill ablaze, with Google making much noise about their interest. The latest potential competitor to the party now is Apple, who is rumored to be eyeing 700 Mhz spectrum. EBay/Skype are also rumored to be considering adding spectrum assets to their fold. The key word in all of this is rumor. We won’t know the reality of these interests until the scheduled January 2008 auction. But it’s intriguing to speculate on the potential of these technology innovators stirring up an already intense competitive environment.

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Seems like VoIP can’t catch a break this summer. It started with Vonage’s patent troubles earlier this year and got worse with the bankruptcy of SunRocket. Most recently Skype suffered a widely publicized outage. Are these just growing pains for a burgeoning technology, or is stand alone VoIP service digging its own grave? Probably a little of both.

VoIP as a technology is certainly here to stay. Internet protocol’s capture of the PSTN is assured. The real question is what kind of service provider will harness VoIP to its fullest potential. Players like Vonage, SunRocket, and Skype push the envelope with VoIP, while more traditional carriers like Verizon take a more cautious and measured approach. Cable companies leverage VoIP very well, but also don’t stray too much from the perception of traditional telephone service. Consumers of course make the ultimate decision about winners and losers and to them, a service that works reliably is paramount. I question whether carriers (new or old) that try to position VoIP as a “revolutionary” new way to do phone service are tooting an irrelevant horn. The revolution for phone service has already arrived – it’s called wireless. In the end, VoIP will probably be nothing more than a more efficient way to transport voice traffic, with some cool new features of course (VoIP as an application in a web 2.0 world is a subject for another post). Carriers that are able to leverage these efficiencies, while also providing a bundle of reliable and value added services may ultimately win. It seems as if carriers that rely on VoIP alone, as some revolutionary way to make phone calls, continue to see their fair share of troubles.

The latest VoIP start-up is ooma, and its launch comes at a very interesting time. With the high profile demise of SunRocket, you would think the last thing a VoIP start-up wants to do is make a splash now. That is, unless you are ooma. They do have a slightly different approach, including a one time fee of $399 for unlimited domestic long distance calling, with no additional monthly fees.

Perhaps ooma’s greatest departure from traditional VoIP competitors is that they don’t necessarily suggest they are a replacement for traditional landline service. Ooma’s peer-to-peer networking technology actually relies on traditional landlines to connect local calls. There service also integrates and augments a traditional landline. For example, 911 calls placed over the ooma device automatically route over the traditional landline. Customers also don’t need a new telephone number for ooma – they can use their existing number. Will these new twists on VoIP provide sustainability for ooma? Who knows. Companies like ooma say they want to revolutionize phone service. Ooma says they want to do to phone service what TiVo did to television viewing. Interesting analogy, especially since TiVo founder Mike Ramsay sits on their board. The real question is, do everyday consumers think traditional landline phone service needs to be revolutionized? Maybe. Or maybe they think wireless service already did that.

Skype has announced that Skype powered phones and headsets will be sold at 1,800 Wal-Mart’s across the U.S., introducing VoIP calling to a mainstream audience. It remains to be seen whether the Wal-Mart demographic will “get” Skype. There certainly will need to be creative store displays that convey the Skype value proposition to an average consumer. But having Skype in front of the Wal-Mart audience on a daily basis is a potentially disruptive milestone in the competitive telecom landscape.

See this Boston Globe brief.

An Oracle sponsored study of global telecom executives reveals they don’t take VoIP lightly. Eighty percent of these executives believe that traditional voice calling will no longer make up their primary revenue within six years. Sixty-eight percent believe VoIP operators like Skype are the greatest threat to fixed line revenues. Executives revealed that additional service creation of products beyond voice are key to the survival of traditional telecom carriers.

Find out more results of this survey from this Oracle press release.