Comments on: Skype Phone Won’t Have Operators Shaking In Their Boots

By: Joe Norton

Joe Norton — Fri, 08 Sep 2006 13:22:41 +0000

Howabout the feasibility of the phone within a WiMax environment? as has been established in Philidelphia, by the city of Phili no less, as well as a few wide spread rural locations in the Midwest. Is there any prospect of skype working within this type of network???

I do foresee a value in the nomadic nature of the phone as is, but if it can work in a much broader wirelss environment, wouldn’t mobility be addressed as well.

By: YAMVOIPK at MobHappy

YAMVOIPK at MobHappy — Thu, 27 Jul 2006 21:26:00 +0000

[...] As I said, not particularly straightforward. It also seems a little problematic to ask people in countries where it’s free to receive calls to shoulder some of the financial burden for cutting your long-distance bills, as you would with REBin. In any case, Rebtel provides a good illustration of the current “mobile VoIP” environment: there are plenty of solutions out there — if you want to cut what you’re paying for international calls and are willing to put up with a bit of a hassle, though admittedly there are other appear to be easier to use than this one. That’s hardly the mobile VoIP revolution that some would have you believe (and don’t get started on Wi-FI just yet). [...]

By: Scott Rafer

Scott Rafer — Wed, 03 May 2006 07:33:16 +0000

Your post is a bit too black/white:
– PHS is still growing in parts of China, which bears study, and
– To the extent that muni wifi is implemented successfully, not all the carriers would be in trouble, but MetroPCS certainly may be.
http://metropcs.com/coverage/coverageareas.php?currentNav=none

By: Daniel Taylor

Daniel Taylor — Tue, 02 May 2006 15:37:43 +0000

Carlo,

I like the “nomadic” characterization. I’m someone who’s been quite nomadic lately, and my Vonage account has been the hardest thing to take with me. I have three choices:

1) Find an Ethernet port to plug in the terminal, and hope that the terminal is relatively close to where I want to work.

2) Get a second account for the Wi-Fi phone (Linksys makes one for $129), or

3) Pay $9.95 per month for the softphone and use a headset on my computer.

Many will argue that Skype and Vonage are two different things, but they’re quite similar in the nomadic sense. You’re still tied to a local network, and the cell phone is still the best option…unless international roaming is involved.

And I find myself standing in Circuit City or BestBuy looking at crap like these devices, wondering why our industry keeps selling incomplete solutions that require users to be integrators with briefcases filled with marginally-useful technology.

By: Jared Benson

Jared Benson — Tue, 02 May 2006 13:42:10 +0000

I’m intrigued to discover what new design options become available to the UI designer when wi-fi technology becomes a (real, viable) option for mobile. So much of today’s mobile experience is driven by the fact that carriers maintain tight control on what customers have access to (games, web) and users have to pay for what data services they use. With so much of the industry based on subscription and pay-for-use models, what happens when it suddenly becomes an all-you-can-eat buffet?