In addition to the relationship with E-Plus, we already have an agreement with Hutchison Whampoa in Hong Kong to promote Skype to its customers in both fixed and mobile telephony there, said Saul Klein, VP of marketing at the Luxembourg-based company. And we’ll see more operators working with us in the coming months.
E-Plus is one of the smaller players in Germany, a market dominated by the duopoly of Vodafone and T-Mobile, and its announcement with Skype came a month after Vodafone Germany had announced it would not be supporting any VoIP calling on its 3G network after July 2007. E-Plus said it would only support Skype and began offering the clients along with a data package.
Vodafone, meanwhile, has since recanted. It told analysts in September that it would not after all be blocking VoIP calls. This suggests that it will at least have some kind of VoIP offering of its own, either in alliance with Skype or another provider, or possibly under its own steam with an own-brand client.
As for the cellphones to which Skype clients can be downloaded, the company struck a deal early this year with Motorola Inc to put them on its devices for the GSM world, and without revealing any specifics, Klein did say that next year we’ll offer a WiFi phone, first in single mode, then a dual-mode WiFi/GSM device. He said the company is also looking at other options such as CDMA, noting we’re very active in Asia, where the rival radio access technology has a strong presence in countries such as Korea, Japan, and China. Next year will be a big year for us in mobile, he said.
