The cellular monopoly

As more and more cellular phones are released/manufactured these days they are generally 3G enabled, this allows the phones to access the internet at pretty decent speeds and has allowed for many innovative application to be made for these phones.

Network operators are loving it because finally people are using the expensive 3G networks they put up a few years ago and their profits are rising BUT there is a thorn in their side and that is to do with VoIP (Voice over internet protocol).

This has been led by Skype which have over 400million users, I use and love it. The problem is coming into factor now whereby cellular manufacturer's are including Skype services on their latest phones which is great for us users but not so great for the network providers.

What VoIP has been doing to the fixed line networks it now can do to the cellular networks and that is allow people to basically phone each other for free at the only cost of the data transfer. Nokia is leading this with the release of the Nokia N97 but network providers in the UK are threatening not to carry the device... now this isn't very nice of them!

Skype today released an App for the iPhone, as seen here in the image. Now this app is great and all as it allows you to chat (IM) amongst your friends and even make calls between users, it how ever limits the calls to when the phone is connected to a wireless network.

This pretty much makes it null in void unless you living in a well connected city.

In the UK 3 has released a handset with Skype capabilities and T-Mobile is also coming to the party the networks that are throwing their toys are O2 and Orange.

At the moment these services seem to all be offered only when on the Wi-Fi network, lets hope the day comes quickly when its all done via the cellular network!

You can read more about it here. Or if you are too impatient to wait head along to Fring a website that has made an application that should allow you to make free calls etc by making use of Skype.