"Dirt cheap" but "Clean useless"

Telepocalypse by Martin


"On the other hand...
It’s election time here in the UK, and the media are required to give a “balanced picture” by offering equal time to the main parties.

So in case you think I’ve gone completely Skype nuts, here’s a few balancing news items.

I had a Skype conference call with a client a few days ago. It was embarassingly bad, mainly because one of the participants was on a flaky hotel Wi-Fi link. In the vertically integrated telco model, this would be the telcos problem. Skype’s layered model tends to push them towards a “not our problem” approach. Mistake! The Skype client needs to be aware of the connectivity quality underneath it. If it can’t deliver, and is disrupting a conf call, then it needs to inform the participant, end the call, or somehow manage the situation. Skype needs to manage the user experience better, even the bits they don’t have control over.

I’m also having too many Skype calls where I need to re-dial to get a better connection. Plus I’ve had several failed SkypeOut calls (what is a 10040 error, or whatever it was, I don’t know — but that’s not my idea of a great user experience).

Skype also has some blind spots and weaknesses. It’s a winner so far at consumer-to-consumer chat, both for close buddies and strangers. Yet there’s space for Google to build a C2B VoIP service (“click here to talk to Acme Rotavtor Supplies”), Microsoft to federate their RTC/Outlook universe (B2B2B2B^n), and the PSTN to soldier on as the B2C preferred means of contact. Skype’s assumption that all calling is free doesn’t jive well with what we’re seeing elsewhere.

That said, some of Skype’s competition don’t get that “great user experience” idea. Yahoo have some dreadful advertising pop-up in their IM client, and you have to hunt for a configuration setting to turn it off. They litter their IM client with irrelevant crap. They force-feed users on upgrades to try to sell them BT’s VoIP services. And the webcam experience in Yahoo — and its ability to deal with firewalls and NAT — sucks like grandma’s lost her dentures. Last time I tried their voice client, it wasn’t good. Skype does things like automatic volume control very well.

In our world of toothpaste, Yahoo is the cap that rolls off into the sink, the tube that splits in your toiletries bag, and the dispenser that squirts a bit too much out when you squeeze the end. Skype has the perfect flip-cap, a tube that stands on its end, and even tastes good.

I’d also like to clarify one thing… I said:

Anyone who thinks they can roll a VoIP strategy without taking Skype into account has lost the plot.

What I mean is that you need to take it into account, not necessarily automatically embrace it. If you’re a telco, it means either fighting or co-opting Skype in some way. (What to know how - click here.)

Skype isn’t perfect. It hasn’t taken the feature set very far past the PSTN. (What can you do in Skype but can’t do with an all-you-can-eat PSTN plan and an IM client?) But the bar anyone else needs to cross is raising out of reach real fast. You’re not only going to have to outflank Skype in product features and usability, but you’re going to have to outdistribute Skype when Skype has an army of tens of millions of pushers already in its grasp.

No matter how much you love SIP and ENUM, there’s no “Perfect for the VoB” sticker on a box in Costco that assures you your SIP phone will interoperate with the rest of the universe, and that it’ll fulfill your full set of needs (voicemail, call control, etc.). The Vob is a marketing failure, not a technology one. The “promise” isn’t clear and the brand non-existent. Compare to WiFi, whose ascent is as much an accident of cute naming as meeting customer need. Also score another similarity between Skype and Microsoft — the genius of both is not the technology, it’s the sales and marketing.

As far as I’m concerned, Skype’s well past the Mum Test — my mother is now getting her friends onto Skype. If you dismiss or ignore Skype, flawed as it may be, you do it at your peril."

Posted by Martin



Perfect for C2C, perfect for now.

But it misses the full picture.

First:

1) Right now VoIP is NOT a Mass Market Product, let me be clearer: it is NOT a PROFITABLE mass market product.

The users of Skype, the enthusiastic of it, are the ones who use it for IP to IP.
Skype out is "dirt cheap", but in most cases "clean useless".
For local calls the PSTN and the Telcos still have better pricing (Flat unlimited rates), better quality and you can use your normal phone.

The cost of a cell phone call local or national is almost the same.
Why should you use a termination? Unless you need to call Internationally.
But how many in the C2C market have the need to call Internationally?
Not many, at least in Europe.

"I love Skype because I can call for free my girlfriend"

That is a good commercial and marketing advertisement for Skype, but doesn't produce many revenues, does it?