Earlier this year Skype unveiled an “exclusive” arrangement with Verizon that involved releasing a somewhat-limited version of Skype for Verizon phones which in some cases eats user minutes, seemingly defeating some benefits of Skype. It was widely speculated that as part of the arrangement, Skype slowed their development of Skype for other platforms – though now they’ve finally released a version of Skype for the Apple iPhone. Unfortunately for users, this version too seems to have some odd restrictions:

iPhone users can make free Skype-to-Skype calls for the rest of the year but after that will have to pay a small, monthly subscription fee. Perhaps even more disconcerting for Skype users, the app – at least initially – apparently does not support background push notifications, meaning users must have the app up and running to receive incoming Skype calls.

These restrictions seem to be custom-made to help AT&T avoid the erosion of SMS and voice revenues in the face of smartphones, push IM clients and mobile VoIP. Of course it remains amusing that Skype keeps striking these kinds of restrictive, closed agreements with companies like AT&T and Verizon – after spending a large chunk of the last five years complaining about closed networks.

Link to the original article…

Use Skype? Love to use the video calling features? Hate how some of the higher priced Microsoft and Logitech cameras claim to be better; but really don’t measure up until you’ve spent over $100 or so? FREETALK has introduced their FREETALK® Everyman HD Webcam (TALK-7140) that has the following specs:

• Skype-certified High Definition camera
• High-performance optical lens
• 24-bit true color depth
• Auto Exposure and Auto White Balance
• Auto Focus capability
• Supports HD video encoding at resolutions up to 1280×720 at up to 22 frames per second
• Universal clip for supporting wide variety of displays

And all for the lovely price of $49 USD. Do want.

[ Link: Skype, Skype Shop, In Store Solutions ]

AT&T is once again dropping hints that the carrier wants to change (read: increase) wireless data pricing. Many investors have been pressuring the company to ditch the $30 unlimited iPhone data plan and instead replace it with some kind of metered billing model. That’s largely because as carriers begin to open their networks to push IM clients and mobile VoIP, they’ll be losing a lot of money on voice and SMS. The only way to counter those losses will be to charge more money for mobile data. Enter AT&T CEO Randall Stephenson, who this week tells Reuters the changes will be coming soon:

Stephenson expects changes in how the wireless industry prices its mobile data services going forward, with heavy data users being charged more. Smartphone users currently pay a monthly fee of about $30 for unlimited data. “For the industry, we’ll progressively move toward more of what I call variable pricing so the heavy (use) consumers will pay more than the lower consumers,” Stephenson said.

What Stephenson calls “variable pricing” is confused by many to mean per-byte billing. While the idea of only paying for what you use sounds great to those not paying attention, the plans AT&T and Verizon actually wind up implementing are very carefully crafted to drive most user bills ever higher. Verizon for instance now offers users the option of paying either $9.95 for a phone data plan with a 25MB cap (20 cents per additional MB, 125 MB maximum), or $30 for “unlimited” (which actually means 5 GB a month) service. This is in addition to SMS, voice, and other monthly fees.

These plans really aren’t about making “heavy users” pay more, they’re about getting everybody to pay more. Since most users consume much more than 25 MB per month, they’ll all wind up upgrading to the more expensive plan in the belief it offers a better consumer value. But suddenly, here you are paying more than $100 a month for voice, data and SMS plan when you’re really not a particularly heavy user. Most users are somewhere around 200 MB a month, though you’ll note the absence of a $20, 300 MB plan.

Meanwhile, you’ve got AT&T and Verizon also now requiring that everybody have an SMS and data plan on their phone — whether they actually use data or not. What’s designed to look like value and choice is in most cases the exact opposite. When thinking of 3G pricing, picture a giant invisible funnel that propels users toward one inevitable outcome: paying more money.

Whatever pricing emerges, eventually users will realize they want to connect multiple devices to these 3G and 4G networks without having to pay a subscription fee for each and every device. While some people think the $15 for 250 MB a month or $30 for “unlimited” 3G pricing of the iPad is a “great” deal, most people simply aren’t going to want to pay yet another monthly fee just for iPad bandwidth after shelling out for both home and wireless connections. Amazingly enough AT&T agrees, Stephenson saying he sees the iPad as a largely Wi-Fi device as a result

“My expectation is that there’s not going to be a lot of people out there looking for another subscription,” he said during a webcast of an investor conference, adding that the device would be a mainly “Wi-Fi driven product.”

Even the company that’s providing the iPad’s 3G functionality doesn’t think you’re willing to pony up the extra cash, which is saying something. Whatever changes AT&T has in store for their bandwidth pricing, make absolutely no mistake that the end result is going to be you paying more money for mobile bandwidth, regardless of whether you use 100 MB a month, or four gigabytes a month. It’s absolutely essential to carrier execs and investors eager to compensate for lost voice and SMS revenues. Anybody claiming otherwise is either selling you something or not reading the fine print.

Link to the original article…

Fring has always been on the cutting edge and one of my favorite multiple client IM programs on my Nokia N810 and Apple iPhone but the addition of being able to receive video just pushes it that much further than the rest in my book.

And what a new year’s gift this is… the world’s first video calls over internet on the Apple iPhone and Apple iPod Touch! fringsters with iPhones and iPod Touch (and selected Nokia devices as announced last week) can now see all their family and friends on fring and Skype this Holiday Season!

Right now iPhone and iPod touch users can receive and make fring and Skype video calls entirely over Internet connection (for free!) and see the person on the other end. When a front camera is placed on these, we’ll have two-way video calls available here too just as we do on all the supported Nokia devices.

The promise of 2-way video from Fring has my attention, that’s been the killer app in my mind for quite some time. Just will be awkward because the Apple iPhone has no forward facing camera at the moment and the Nokia devices they’re currently supporting are only the Symbian phones.

But the Maemo powered Nokia N900 also has a forward facing camera… how about some support there too fring? Please?

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