SAM Daily Times

''BREAKING THE TELECOM ECONOMICS TEETH!''

Your starter for 10: which company used Estonian software talent to create a new service, which took hold so effectively that five years after opening for business its name is already a VERB?

Answer: SKYPE

Niklas Zennstrom and Janus Frriis, two Scandinavian entrepreneurs, had already caused mayhem in the music business with their peer-to-peer network KaZaA.

Skype is what they went on to do next.


Skype isn't the only firm offering its customers Voice over Internet Protocol, or VOIP. The great thing about VOIP is that if you have a broadband connection, and the person on the other end of the line has a broadband connection, you can talk to each other for free.

It's a classic piece if disruptive technology! Imagine sitting in a cafe that offers its customers free broadband access. If your embarrassment levels were lower, you could fire up your Skype and talk to anyone in the world with a Skype account for as long as you like at a cost of pure Zero.

So it's not hard to see why Telecom companies truly and deeply hate VOIP!

　

Skype uses different technology to the other VOIP businesses, not the least because it uses same peer-to-peer model as KaZaA. The upshot is that Skype doesn't play well with other VOIP services. It that weren't true, Skype would be unarguably the best VOIP to use. It's still pretty damn good though, and it's easy to see why it's caught on to the point where it now has over 639million users.

　

All Students use Skype when calling abroad or when calling home from abroad.And the main reason is to avoid the grotesque, extortionate fees charged by mobile phone companies ans hotels for International calls.

Anyone would mind those costs much less if there was any genuine reason -any reason at all- why they were so high. It's a pure pure case of milking a captive audience. Shame on them, ever!!

The Telecom companies charge this or any amount because they can get away with it!


Now thanks to Skype, they can only extort people who are idiots or who aren't tech savvy. Skype doesn't just offer normal telephone calls - you can also communicate by video. You sit in front of your Laptop webcam, and the other party sits in front of theirs, and away you go.

For years, the ideaof a mobile video call was a Holygrail of the Telecoms industry, a distant impossible dream, which would take Telephony to an entirely new level.And it has done just that. You might as well see the person you are talking to!

To Skype - a Verb, intransitive. In the years ahead it could turn well, into any other form. Your imagination.


Many thanks to !WOW! Good Night & God Bless!

SAM Daily Times - the Voice of the Voiceless!