Mobile operators have another go at killing IM and Skype

Global trade body the GSMA is pushing its operator-interaction API Joyn with an emulator enabling developers to start work. It has also just announced that US mobile carrier MetroPCS has Joyned the club. MetroPCS follows a handful of European operators in deploying the platform which the GSMA is hoping will drag customers back …

[Anonymous Coward]

Once upon a time they might have been able to kill Skype

But now that Microsoft owns it, I rate their chance of making this happen, a b ig fat Zero, Nada, Zilch.

About five years too late IMHO.

[jonathanb]

Re: Once upon a time they might have been able to kill Skype

It's not so much that Microsoft owns it. People use Skype because everyone else uses Skype. Being the first customer of a new messaging network isn't much fun because there isn't anyone to talk to.

[Test Man]

Re: Once upon a time they might have been able to kill Skype

"It's not so much that Microsoft owns it. People use Skype because everyone else uses Skype."

Exactly. It's too entrenched and that was a fact years before Microsoft was even starting to sniff around Skype.

This new initiative is too little too late.

[Peter Simpson 1]

Re: Once upon a time they might have been able to kill Skype

" People use Skype because everyone else uses Skype. "

And everyone else uses Skype because it's the only available cross-platform audio/video chat app (that works).

It even works on Linux...

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Once upon a time they might have been able to kill Skype

Another big factor is that Skype is available on all kinds of devices, not just phones and not just devices from one manufacturer. And I don't expect that to change under Microsoft, they paid far too much money to go and kill it buy restricting it to only devices within the Microsoft realm.

[N13L5]

Re: Once upon a time they might have been able to kill Skype

Thank God!

Even if Microcruft collapses, I'm confident Skype will first be sold on to someone else hopeful to achieve some strategic goal with it :D

As for the article's statement of "stealing customer's operator loyalties away", thats hilarious! I've never heard of anyone who had any kind of feeling of loyalty towards the Telco crooks.

Certainly not after all the Telco supported scams... "oh sorry, we can't wave the phony charges for those calls to a Ukrainian $100 a minute service line you never made"

[Ommerson]

This looks like a solution (and late, and not terribly interesting one at that) looking for a problem. Why on earth would customers be interested in this when there are already plenty of really good alternatives?

[Dave 15]

Reinventing wheel

The only real reason for reinventing the wheel is to rip people off.

Skype is only not allowed because it would allow you to phone abroad without getting hit by colossal fees.

Oh well, I daresay in 300 years time the EU will say it is going to have a study about it... nothing much will happen though

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Reinventing wheel

"The only real reason for reinventing the wheel is to rip people off.

Skype is only not allowed because it would allow you to phone abroad without getting hit by colossal fees."

Well said!

Also, as someone who travels extensively, why would I use my mobile abroad, when I can use Skype for free or at a greatly reduced cost when calling landlines/other mobiles?

We wouldn't need yet another messaging service if mobile operators stopped fleecing us for roaming. Surely the actual costs involved can't be anywhere near what we are charged?

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Reinventing wheel

It does allow it already - just beack from a trip to Finland and I always phoned home using Skype using the free hotel wi-fi or other available ones. Same when I was in Malaysia last year.

Why should I pay heavy roaming charges when I can call for free, or for a far smaller fee? Telco should only understand the era of large roaming fees are over, and no protocol they can invent can stop other cheaper ways to communicate.

[Crisp]

I am not a NUMBER!

I am a free man!

[b166er]

Does it work on other networks? Does it work on any device?

Can't see it myself. The carriers won't want it working over WiMax for example, as that will be a competing infrastructure.

Perhaps they won't fear broadband for now over POTS/Fibre, because it's not a competing technology, but unless it's going to work over any network and on any device, it's a non starter .

[Dan 55]

NOs vs. MVNOs

I can see this being used as yet another tool to try and keep people on traditional expensive networks instead of cheap virtual networks and as such it won't be ubiquitous and therefore won't work.

[Anonymous Coward]

Please Skodafone, Nothing Nowhere, Opoo and Three, just give us good coverage at a reasonable price and leave it at that.

We don't want your value added crap.

[spencer]

whatsapp already does this.

doesn't whatsapp already do this? and it can do this over gsm internet (2g) - unless I've missed something?

[Anonymous Coward]

Kill Skype??

I barely use it except to dial 0800 numbers, if I want to talk to people, i use google talk or I dial a phone number on my phone... Yes PHONES make calls and are actually pretty good at it..

But I am trying to convert people to using google talk, since its cross platform and I can be available from any device I happen to have with me...

Network operators ,please just give us good coverage, high speed data & reasonable charges... I am happy for a sliding scale data allowance, but max price should be around £35/month unlimited, since that IS what I currently pay for unlimited fast data....

[EyeCU]

since its cross platform and I can be available from any device

And Skype isn't?

Why should anybody follow you to google talk when Skype already works for them in exactly the way you describe?

[Charlie Clark]

Security matters

to me at least. Not that I generally have a lot to say or anything that would be a problem for eavesdroppers but I do believe that people should have the most secure communications possible on any particular channel. E-mail is the glaring exception, of course.

Reviews of Wickr (http://mywickr.com) or Silent Circle (http://silentcircle.com) on El Reg would be nice.

[Anonymous Coward]

Awful Pun

I want the author of that pun taken out and SHOT AT ONCE!!!!!