[Sly Fox]

Anybody else find it interesting that a mobile phone company would not only allow but go into business with a primary competitor? I guess it reveals where Verizon sees its future income .... broadband access not air minutes.

Verizon Wireless to welcome rival Skype onto its smartphones

By Cecilia Kang
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, February 17, 2010

Verizon Wireless said Tuesday that it would add Skype's Internet phone application to some of its smartphones, signaling a possible shift in the wireless industry's stance against allowing customers to use competing technologies on it's networks.

The companies said in a joint news conference at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona that starting in late March, Verizon's 90 million customers will be able to download the free voice and videoconferencing software program onto nine smartphones offered by the carrier, including the BlackBerry Curve and Motorola Droid.

Click Here for Full Story

Yeah, I am aware that Skype has been available via WiFi on iPhones.

[Hold My Own]

Your right about skype and the iphone but google voice and iphone is a different story....hence the battle over google not allowing their gps(?) on the iphone without paying for it (something like that)

[El Scorcho]

Your right about skype and the iphone but google voice and iphone is a different story....hence the battle over google not allowing their gps(?) on the iphone without paying for it (something like that)

I think you're a little mixed up.

First of all, Google Voice is available on the iPhone now. It's a HTML5-based app but it works and it's there. Not the same, but it works.

Second, AT&T changed their terms to allow VoIP calling over 3G on their network. Skype hasn't updated their iPhone app yet and no one knows why. (Unless it has something to do with this.) There are plenty of other VoIP apps out there for the iPhone now that are working over 3G just fine.

Last, Google's GPS not being available on the iPhone has nothing to do with anything. Google's GPS is a feature in their own OS. That's why it's not available on the iPhone. Their free turn-by-turn navi is a huge feature for them for now.

But back to the point of Sly's post...

The future of the carriers is to serve us all as "dumb pipes". This is their worst fear, but it's how it has to be. I'm surprised to see Verizon seemingly embracing this and can only wonder why they're doing it. I don't buy that they're on board with that mentality.