Skype For iPhone

Fast Company has a great round up on iPhone features. My favourite bit, however is where Kit Eaton, the author, describes why the crippling of the phone so that it will only work on a WiFi (and not the 3G data connection) is so backwards. Kit derides the way mobile providers continue to believe that…

“…they’re in the business of selling you minutes of voice time for your cellphone, even though all they’re actually selling is two-way wireless data transfer at a specific data rate. Whether you’re using your cellphone to chat or surf the web all that’s really happening is the fast transfer of digital data between your phone and nearby cellphone masts. And as more of us use smartphones like the iPhone or Blackberry to access data on the move, the situation will become yet more data-biased. Eventually, through market pressure or legal action, perhaps with the EU leading the way, cellphone operators will have to start earning revenue by charging you exclusively for the data you access, or follow the home ISP model of charging different tariffs for different data rates–and thus stop discriminating the minutes of “talk time” you’re using up.” 

Whether this app will be the beginning of the end of mobile minutes, or just another blip in the disproportionate value scheme that the oligopolistic mobile providers around the world have us addicted to remains to be seen.

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