Fear of Skype on 3G

Skype is officially coming to the iPhone and BlackBerry, but is being limited to WiFi for now. Simply put, don’t expect Skype working over a 3G network anytime soon. 

For a long time, as I have had a foot in the communications industry, I have noticed how protective the aging giants that we know as cell-phone carriers can be. Always making it confusing for the customer, always  complicating the plans.  But never giving always taking.

So it is a unique time when an application comes to the surface like Skype, that allows users to then bypass the cellphone rates.  At the same time it is pretty sad that its only avenue of use is over WIFI, because carriers like AT&T are afraid of it.

I wonder how long it will take for apps on the iPhone (for instance) to break trend and allow tethering or voip calls over 3G?

Probably not in the next 5 years, unless there is a huge cost structure that changes.

I can certainly see the world moving to a ‘skype’ like system, where calling someone is done by clicking on their username, and that will eliminate things like phone numbers, as we are already running out of them in most places.