Skype, Phone Home:VoIP is only the starting point

 Update: I'm looking for someone to fill me in on what Skype is introducting at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona

The first time I used Skype internationally was, if I recall correctly, in 2004 when I was in Europe attending the CeBit show in Germany and I used it to call back to the U.S. It was then and remains one of the true technology success stories of the Internet. How cool was it to realize you could gab away round the world for free while those around you were racking up huge telecom charges?

Three recent Skype related events have me wondering if Skype is only a woulda, shoulda, coulda company or a company that still has the legs to change the dynamics of worldwide communication. The first event was a recent video call my wife and I had with our son and his wife who now reside in England. It is a great way to stay in touch. The second was a story I heard second hand about a grandmom in the U.S. who leaves Skype on all the time to always have a chance to see her grandkids playing in the house in Brazil. And the third -- and bigger prompt for this post -- is the recent speculation that eBay is ready to set Skype free.

The video conference with my son and daughter-in-law in England was just a nice reminder that Skype still works well. The service has had some spotty performance issues and there are lots of free alternatives (including Google Talk), but overall the service still works. The U.S.A. to Brazil example is a reminder that as services like Skype and, even more so, video over the web becomes more popular, there is going to be an infrastructure crunch at some point.

While eBay hasn't really said one way or the other that Skype is for sale, the $2.6 Billion acquisition of Skype in 2005 remains one of the more perplexing acquisitions. At one time the rumor was that the company bought Skype so bidders would be able to move from web-based bidding to phone-based bidding. This makes no sense but then the acquisition really didn't make sense. Skype has continued to grow and Wikipedia has some decent stats on usage.

But Skype has never seemed to crack a couple of markets. The product has lots of business-type services but I have yet to run into a business that has abandoned its traditional carriers for an all Skype network. Skype on a Blackberry? Some folks claim you can do it, but the effort does not seem worth the reward. Skype on an iPhone? Sort of. This may change soon,(the company introduced a Skype light for Androis at CES)  but Skype is late in getting into what should have been their business: communicating on mobile devices. Skype is expected to announce some updates at the Mobile World Congress. I hope they do, but for mobile international calls, I'd still advise travellers to either buy one of those cheapo calling cards with lots of cheap minutes or bring along an unlocked phone and buy a SIM card if they will be staying in one country for a while. Worldwide carrier rates are still too expensive for my tastes. 

But Skype is playing catch-up. What does it need to get ahead of the pack? It needs to be independent. It needs to offer phones with a wide variety of connection options (Wi-Fi, mobile and even satellite) that easily allows the user to pick between cost and quality. For the business user, it needs to offer security and data connectivity. For the consumer, it needs to offer video and payment systems. I'm not saying this just because I, like Skype, have a Swedish hertiage and I always enjoy seeing a Swede have a success. I just think Skype could be so much more. It just needs to be free to build upon its roots.