Skype's Helping Verizon Stall Wireless Evolution - Crippled apps, exclusive deals, and less choice. Good work all around, gents. - dslreports.com

We've consistently explored how incumbent wireless carriers are terrified of the evolution of mobile networks and being relegated to "dumb pipe" status. The rise of smartphones, mobile VoIP, and push IM clients all collectively not only threaten some huge cash cows (voice minutes, SMS), but also content revenues. Applications like Google Voice even threaten to take core dialing and call functionality (voicemail) out of the hands of carriers. That would mean carriers would exist simply to run the best network possible, which might sound good to some of us -- but not to investors who expect quarter over quarter growth.

You'd think that mobile VoIP carriers like Skype would be helping to push us toward this open future, which means more choice for consumers and more opportunity for third party content and service vendors. But as we saw with Skype's recent exclusive, crippled application deal with Verizon, they're actually doing the opposite -- signing deals that appear to limit mobile VoIP's usefulness while helping Verizon resist change. Derek Kerton over at Techdirt breaks the issue down in great detail, offering a nice timeline of Skype's recent behavior in the mobile VoIP front:

The result of this exclusive deal is, essentially, to deprive an entire country of the value of a good VoIP service (Skype) on mobile phones, and instead to offer us a crippled version that is designed not to delight any user, but to delight a carrier. How ironic, then, that Skype's Silverman has been at the forefront of the push for more "open" networks.

As Kerton notes, this comes even after Skype complained ceaselessly about closed networks, and after AT&T finally relented and allowed Skype full access to AT&T's 3G network. In short, Skype was apparently willing to compromise their principles for some monetary love from Verizon, at the cost of fully functional mobile applications and consumer choice. And the slow and bumpy road toward truly open mobile networks continues...

Related:

1. Wednesday Evening Links
2. AT&T Slammed For Wireless Streaming 'Double Standard'
3. Verizon App Store To Block Bandwidth-Intensive Apps
4. Google Voice Ban Is Clear Network Neutrality Violation
5. What Network Neutrality Is REALLY About
6. AT&T: Google Is The Enemy Of Nuns
7. Our National Broadband Plan Is A Bland, Boring Mess
8. Surprise: AT&T's First Android Isn't Open

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