more on anti-gripe about Skype purchase

[David Farber <dave () farber net>]

Begin forwarded message:

From: Robert Lee <robertslee () verizon net>
Date: September 21, 2005 10:37:06 AM EDT
To: dave () farber net
Subject: RE: [IP] more on anti-gripe about Skype purchase


I am not sure I understand all that you intended to convey, but I see
VOIP as a fatal diminution of value to the Bells.

VOIP exposes the fact that telecom is not a service (to be charged for)
but an attribute of the network (which comes along with the access fee).

The only way traditional telephone service providers can make up the
revenue is by charging big time for access.  The only way they can do
this is to attempt to hoodwink the state utility commissions into
believing that all their costs are maintenance of layer 1 costs.  That
will work in this administration but sooner or later the country will
escape and return to the hands of traditional Republicans and Democrats.


With regard to WIFI, I TOTALLY agree.  I was in Bermuda for two months,
in a sail boat.  Much of the time I anchored within a hundred yards of
shore and I could use Skype and SkypeOut on free WIFI access points.
When there was no WIFI network to hook up to I had to use my cell phone.
I used approximately the same number of minutes in each mode (a Michael
Powell term).  My SkypeOut bill was $2.57 cents, Euro.  My cell phone
bill was $3,900.  I still have an unused SkypeOut balance of $7.43 Euro.

That is the enormity of the crisis that will befall the telephone
companies.

The best cable companies are a bit luckier.  The regulators have allowed
them to buy and control "entertainment" content.  That entertainment
content has subsumed "news" content has been lost on the regulators.
But, for now, cable companies control access, service, and content.

IMO Skype is worthless.  The only thing necessary to affect worldwide
free VOIP is a DNS and open and simple freeware, which will come.  Skype
has marginal utility in this early adoption era in that it enables
termination on the PSTN (SkypeOut) and offers a PSTN interface for
callers in (SkypeIn).  But as VOIP gains traction these offerings will
be bladeless knives without handles.  I think VOIP will wind up being
the fastest adoption of a major technology breakthrough since the toilet
and ten years from now kids will not even know what a telephone number
or telephone is.

I am amazed that eBay would buy for billions what they could have
programmed in six months.

 -----Original Message-----
From: David Farber [mailto:dave () farber net]
Sent: Wednesday, September 21, 2005 9:17 AM
To: Ip Ip
Subject: [IP] more on anti-gripe about Skype purchase



Begin forwarded message:

From: Patrizia <patrizia () worldonip com>
Date: September 21, 2005 4:00:07 AM EDT
To: dave () farber net
Subject: RE: [IP] anti-gripe about Skype purchase



Every increase in the value or valuation of Skype or equivalent is "an
increase" in the value of the telecoms.

What users never saw was that Skype was (and never wanted to be) nothing
else than a NEW TELECOM, which used new and more powerful
infrastructures.
The differences were:

1) It used lines that didn't belonged to them (but customers' owned or
better leased and paid for from the customers)

2) It had lower prices because it just had to charge the last mile,
being
the trip on the Internet already paid, leased by the customer.

3) It was going to become even a bigger monopoly than the actual ones,
because most of the Telecoms, at least in Europe are national.

4) It was even worse because used proprietary protocols and codec,
making it
an obligation for the customer to use THEIR last mile.

If you hate monopolies and want to demolish them, YOU HAVE to propose
the
opposite scenario.
Free market for all the small entrepreneus who want to work and invest.
Better service, because there is competition.

Besides, I laugh thinking of a thread to the Telephone companies.
Now a day their biggest revenue IS the MOBILE market and everybody who
understands a little bit of wireless understands also that WI-FI at
least
now, IS NOT a thread to their incomes...

May be in the future, but in a different way, not certainly building
copies
of the old telecoms.
Whay people didn't understand is the big potential of VoIP which is
in the
possibility of having "Customers' owned infrastructures".


-----Original Message-----
From: David Farber [mailto:dave () farber net]
Sent: 20 September 2005 20:13
To: Ip Ip
Subject: [IP] anti-gripe about Skype purchase



Begin forwarded message:

From: Andrew Lippman <lip () media mit edu>
Date: September 20, 2005 2:04:15 PM EDT
To: dave () farber net
Cc: "David P. Reed" <dpreed () reed com>
Subject: anti-gripe about Skype purchase


Every increase in the value or valuation of Skype or equivalent is a
decrease in the value of the telecoms.  That's the message of the Skype
purchase, and it's good news for us.  The next buyout will be even
larger.

andy lippman



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