[3GScottishUser]

Press Release:

BARCELONA, Spain--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Feb. 14, 2006--Skype, the fastest growing Internet Communications Company and Hutchison 3 Group, the leader in 3G mobile services, today announced an agreement to enable Skype communications on 3G.

Working together, Hutchison 3 Group and Skype plan to give people the freedom to enjoy Skype anywhere they go, whether at home, in the office or on the move while on Hutchison's 3 networks. Hutchison views Skype as an attractive value added service, providing customers with more choice and thus further accelerating the uptake of the Hutchison's 3G services.

The Skype and Hutchison 3 brands compliment each other, representing innovation and high value offerings to consumers. This partnership will enable Hutchison to directly tap into the 75 million people using Skype across the Hutchison territories and promote to them the benefits of using Skype on Hutchison's networks.

"With Skype on mobile devices, people can keep in touch with friends, family and colleagues wherever they go. This takes Skype beyond the PC into the mobile world," said Niklas Zennstrom, Skype CEO and co-founder. "I believe this will accelerate the adoption and use of Skype to new levels."

Pioneering 3G mobile operator Hutchison 3 Group is expected to be the first to market the Skype-enabled mobile devices. Hutchison is running friendly user trials to optimize the user experience and plans to launch later this year, following its trials, in countries including Austria, Australia, Hong Kong, Sweden, the UK and Italy. Trials will be carried out using enabled mobile phones from leading phone manufacturers.

3 Sweden is already offering a Skype bundle with a 3G flat-rate subscription and 3G data card. With a mobile flat-rate data plan from Hutchison 3, users can make unlimited Skype calls.

"Skype on 3G smartphones, datacards and other devices is a service that our customers will be thrilled to use. With Skype they can talk for as long as they want with their friends around the world. It will be a great addition to our existing wide range of multi-media mobile broadband services. We believe Skype is yet another reason for people to choose 3 - customers demand a choice of innovative services and we are delighted to be working with Skype to deliver that, said Christian Salbaing, MD Europe Telecommunications at Hutchison 3. "We look forward to offering it to our subscribers in our key markets starting with Sweden and then in our other markets as soon as user trials are concluded."

Skype for mobile devices offers a number of key features and benefits:

-- Skype-to-Skype and SkypeOut calls

-- Instant Messaging and group chat

-- Presence, including online, offline, away, call forwarding

-- Voicemail

-- Easy contact search

-- Contact request authorization and new contact addition

http://home.businesswire.com/portal/site/google/index.jsp?ndmViewId=news_view&newsId=20060214005713&newsLang=en

[Ben]

"3 Sweden is already offering a Skype bundle with a 3G flat-rate subscription and 3G data card. With a mobile flat-rate data plan from Hutchison 3, users can make unlimited Skype calls."

Alright for some! I hope the UK operation takes a good look at the Swedish way of doing things.

This sounds like excellent news though, a step towards fully IP based mobile. Hutch with their pure, new 3G networks seem like a perfect partner for such a change to get underway.

[3GScottishUser]

You will need to buy a new phone with embedded software (so hard luck if you have just got into an 18 month contract unless they organise software updates), so dont get too excited. We will also have to see how the pricing works out and remember that it'll be fine for calling as long as friends and family (a) have Skype installed and (b) are on their PC when you call.

I use Skype occasionally and dont find it much cheaper calling landlines and mobiles. Fine for Skype contacts though but its not like a 'real' phone service, more like MSN Messenger really.

I think both 3 and Skype will gain some good publicity from this move but it'll take a while to filter through.

Some more info from The Financial Times (14/02/2006):

Hutchison’s Three networks are to sell handsets with Skype software built in, in the boldest step yet by a European mobile network operator to branch into potentially disruptive voice-over-IP technology.

At the 3GSM Congress in Barcelona on Tuesday, Hutchison’s 3G Europe managing director, Christian Salbaing, said a trial of the service in Sweden would likely result in a rollout in that country later this year.

Mr Salbaing said all Hutchison’s Three businesses in Europe would eventually offer Skype 3G phones, and he believed all Hutchison’s other networks were likely to follow suit. Hong Kong-based Hutchison Whampoa also operates Three networks in Italy, the UK, Denmark, Ireland, as well as Australia.

Skype, a free downloadable programme, allows computer users to make free or very cheap phone calls using the internet instead of traditional telephone voice systems. The two-year-old company was bought by eBay last year for $2.6bn.

However Hutchison will limit risks to its revenue by ruling out “dual-mode” handsets, which can use free wireless internet hotspots as well as mobile networks.

Analysts acknowledged the tie-up could lead to some increase in pricing pressure but appeared generally underwhelmed by the announcement.

“It all sounds very exciting but in reality it is probably less so,” said Robert Grindle, telecoms analyst at Dresdner Kleinwort Wasserstein in London. “Skype isn’t free to other mobile phones so round the edges there might be some impact [on pricing] but it sounds more like marketing hype.”

Around three-quarters of all calls from mobiles are made to other mobiles and the cost of calling a mobile phone from a computer with Skype is not always cheaper than a traditional call. “There is a reasonable chance that it would be cheaper to phone another mobile using your mobile operator’s network than to use Skype,” said another analyst.

Mr Salbaing said it was too early to say whether it would lower average revenue per user (arpu), but added: “We don’t think we’re going to bring values down, it’s going to enhance the value proposition.”

Hutchison had already spoken to some mobile handset manufacturers about making phones that would specifically support Skype. “Obviously the quality has to be at a level where the customer will again be prepared to pay for it.”

Just a few hours earlier at 3GSM Alan Harper, group strategy director at Vodafone, said he believed mobile voice-over-IP services were two to three years away from being a mass market product.

Christian Salbaing, Hutchison’s managing director of European telecommunications, said all Hutchison’s Three businesses in Europe would sell Skype and he believed all Hutchison’s other networks were likely to follow suit. “The logic would be: yes,” he told the Financial Times. Singapore-based Hutchison Whampoa also operates Three networks in Italy, the UK, Denmark, Ireland, as well as Australia.

http://news.ft.com/cms/s/6a3d7cd4-9d88-11da-b1c6-0000779e2340.html

[Ben]

The WiFi-enabled phone question is going to yield some interesting answers. Still, at least Hutchison is making the first step in that it will be allowing phonecalls to take place over its network, officially, whereby it isn't the carrier of the call - just the data.

Nokia may find it very hard to get mobops in the UK, and any country, to carry it's new WiFi enabled handsets. If Three said 'sure, we'll install Skype on our phones and, if you have WiFi, we'll let you make calls from your subsidised handset for free' then it'd be complete suicide.

[3GScottishUser]

"Nokia may find it very hard to get mobops in the UK, and any country, to carry it's new WiFi enabled handsets."

£1 to a penny that BT will be offering Nokia's handsets on 'Fusion' when they are available. Not exactly free but I suspect Nokia are hedging their bets and want a slice of the action that Motorola have to themselves right now. With BT signing up 2000 customers a week it makes sense to have something to compete and in so doing they will expand the market with more choice and options for 'integrated' Wi-Fi/UMTS/GSM/ADSL/VOIP communiaction.

Just what BT are aiming for right now.

[Hands0n]

The difficulty is not the technology but simply getting my head around what exactly it is that 3 are going to be offering with this tie-in.

If they are going to somehow lock the WiFi into just chargeable networks and exclude the domestic or free WiFi hotspot the punter is going to be somewhat disappointed. But if it is unfettered WiFi access when in a zone (commercial or domestic/office) the proposition is altogether much more exciting.

Turning to the data bundles and the Skype charges for calls - I tend to concur with the above that the actual cost to the user of making mobile-to-mobile [over VoIP] is unlikely to be cheaper, and in fact may well be more expensive than current X-Net bundles. Although, with flat rate data, the bonus is that data costs are accounted for - useful for the moderate/heavy data user.

Skype Out charges are competitive in comparison to regular land-line costs, especially when going International. But national mobile costs are little better the last time I looked (a few months back).

We need to see the actual offering and its charges before a reasonable assessment can be made as to worth.

But these are exciting developments - and if it does not much more than cause the likes of Vodafone to re-assess their forecasts as to when to "allow" us more cost beneficial access to data then I'm all for 3 rocking the boat [again].

Well done 3 and Skype - now please, pretty please, make it work in terms of cost to the user and dont treat data like its made of platinum dust!