Microsoft now owns one-third of that commodity, grossing (and netting?) far less per minute than the carriers ever did. In the US, mobile carriers now concede that voice is a commodity, changing their pricing strategies to give away voice at flat rates and actively seeking new revenue opportunities through data, among other things. And while I occasionally find video conferencing useful within my workplace, I mostly avoid it. And frankly, who besides the most deluded within eBay ever thought it would? We type and text because we don’t want to talk. Remember how then-eBay CEO Meg Whitman pitched the deal? That sellers and buyers could commune over Skype to haggle over a sale? It never happened. This seems somewhat similar to eBay’s acquisition of Skype. I’m clearly not alone in using Skype to skirt telco’s last source of profitability for voice – international calling – which has continued to grow:īut come on: do you really want that? The Viability Of Skype It wasn’t free, but at pennies per minute, it might as well have been. Pancras station, logged into the free wifi, and made my call using Skype. I had to make a call from London to the US today, and didn’t want to impoverish my family by paying AT&T’s absurdly high roaming rates.

And I might as well admit it: I’m part of the problem. Ironically, Skype can shoulder some of the blame, as an ARCchart study points out. This Is The United States Calling, Are We Reaching…?

Microsoft acquired Skype to “increase the accessibility of real-time video and voice communications, bringing benefits to both consumers and enterprise users and generating significant new business and revenue opportunities.” The video aspect of the deal may well bear fruit, but voice? Voice communication is now a commodity, one that telcos – mobile and fixed line alike – are finding it increasingly hard to monetize.

Who owns skype today