[LINK] Why Skype?

Tom Koltai tomk at unwired.com.au
Thu May 12 11:25:45 AEST 2011



> -----Original Message-----
> From: link-bounces at mailman.anu.edu.au 
> [mailto:link-bounces at mailman.anu.edu.au] On Behalf Of rene
> Sent: Thursday, 12 May 2011 10:55 AM
> To: link at mailman.anu.edu.au
> Subject: Re: [LINK] Why Skype?
> 
><SNIP> 
>
> Another problem is that the author appears to be assuming 
> that Microsoft 
> will change Skype's business model. Skype's web site appears 
> to be telling 
> me that Skype charges people in Australia 3c per minute for calls 
> terminating on the AU PSTN. Some, probably all, AU VOIP 
> service providers 
> have long been offering very cheap flat rate (<20c) for calls to AU 
> landline numbers.
> 

Irene, that is unfortunately because of Australia's irrelevant
population base.
Of the 20 million visible P2P [XOR] nodes logged into Skype at any one
time, less than a million [1] are from Australia.

As the rest of the world [95% of Skype users] are used to timed billing
charges, it is far easier for Skype to implement a single plan. Their
revenue gain from incoming ISD terminating on AU Pots services is
probably sufficient enough to not tamper with the formula.

... And of course, peer pressure on the timed call basis forces more new
users onto the Skype platform 
(Skype to Skype free).

As the Internet is becoming all about "I have 550 million users and I'll
raise you four third world country's and some frequent flier miles" I
guess we are going to continue to see reverse psychology selling a
growing part of our commercial ecosystem.

[1]
http://www.acma.gov.au/webwr/_assets/main/lib310658/changes_in_australia
n_voip_market.doc [Pg 15] Data from Nielsen's Online Netview indicates
that the number of Australian Skype users has increased significantly,
and at June 2008 there were 876,000 unique users to Skype during that
month compared with 1.01 million unique users in the month of June 2009.
Time per session has also increased from around an hour in June 2008, to
an hour and a half in June 2009. 




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