Skype Claims Improved Voice Quality for Version 3.8 Software

Jeremy Kirk, IDG News Service

Skype has released an upgraded version of its VOIP (voice over IP) software client for Windows PCs that cuts out more background noise and drops fewer calls, the eBay subsidiary said.

"The main improvements can be found under the hood of the audio engine," Skype spokesman Villu Arak wrote in his blog.

Another upgrade to the 3.8.0.115 version eliminates the need to adjust the sound settings after changing headsets or microphones, Arak wrote. Some video-related bugs have also been cleared up, and the client now has its own implementation of the Universal Plug-and-Play networking protocol, rather than relying on Microsoft's code.

Also, Skype 3.8 will by default not show an avatar when a user sees an incoming authorization request.

"Some people have been using offensive images, so we decided to put them behind a veil," Arak wrote. "You can still see the hidden avatar if you click on it.

Skype was bought by eBay in 2005 for US$2.6 billion. While the subsidiary is profitable as well as popular, it has been pressured by heavy competition from operators and other VOIP (voice over Internet Protocol) services.

Speculation abounded Skype might be sold after eBay executives said earlier they were taking a look at how to work Skype better into their business. So far, no sale has materialized.

Earlier this month, Skype introduced a flat-rate international calling plan with up to 10,000 minutes per month. For U.S. users, the plan costs $9.95 for calls to 34 countries.

Skype launches new beta for feature phones, for S60 and Windows Mobile

Skype announced a beta version of its client for Java-enabled mobile phones with the current list of compatible devices from Motorola, Nokia, and Samsung. The intent of this new mobile client is to expand Skype to the mass market feature phone, but being the mobile geek that I am I decided to try it out on some other devices and was fairly pleased with the results.

While Skype is a VoIP solution that is extremely popular around the world, this current beta mobile implementation actually uses standard calls over carrier networks to make the actual call from your mobile phone. Most feature phones/mass market phones do not support WiFi or 3G networks in the U.S. so this is probably the best way to currently get the calls initiated. There are a few select countries where you can actually make calls via the Skype network directly in this current beta too, including Brazil (Rio de Janeiro), Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Poland, Sweden, and the United Kingdom. The call is then routed through Skype’s network to the person you are calling and the only charges that will apply are your carrier minutes. When you initiate a call a pop-up appears to ask if you want to make the local call and my phones kept calling an 813 area code number. It still does use WiFi or 3G networks to maintain your presence and carry out chats so it is a rather seamless experience on your device.

I think U.S. carriers may actually support this type of implementation of Skype because it uses up carrier minutes and they prefer that you upgrade your plan to get more minutes rather than having you use WiFi on a supported handset and make calls without their network.

I first loaded this Skype beta client on my Nokia N95 and placed a call to fellow MobileTechRoundup podcast co-host Kevin Tofel before we recorded our latest show. He did not see me appear as my Skype user name on his end, but as a call from my mobile phone number. The call sounded quite clear on both ends. He also sent me a chat message and that appeared right on my phone and allowed me to chat back with him. This part was carried out via my 3G connection (WiFi works too). The interesting thing is that I was stilled signed into Skype on my MBP so I also saw the same chat appear on a window on that machine.

Since this is a Java application and I have a Java client on my T-Mobile Shadow, I loaded the Skype beta (without incident) on my Shadow and tried to make a connection via the T-Mobile EDGE network. This connection failed so I then tried a WiFi connection. I was able to connect via WiFi, but the call out from the phone was still made to that 813 area code number. Again, chatting was carried out via WiFi.

You can download and try out the application right from your mobile phone browser by visiting http://www.skype.com/m or go to the Skype page and download it to your computer first.

There is a Skype client for Windows Mobile currently available (and has been for some time), however that client only lets you talk via speakerphone or a headset. With this Java client you can hold your phone and use it without a headset or in speakerphone mode. I also really like the N800/N810 client and have used that on business trips with a WiFi connection to stay in touch with family.

I can see using this with my AT&T account since I have thousands of available roll-over minutes and think this is a great product for feature phone users. However, smartphone users have other available solutions that allow us to actually make calls over WiFi without needing to make a local call. fring is one of my favorite solutions that works with Windows Mobile and S60 devices and also integrates Skype into the program so that is my preferred solution.

Matthew Miller is an avid mobile device enthusiast who works during the day as a professional naval architect in Seattle. See his full profile and disclosure of his industry affiliations.

Microsoft Mislabels Skype as Adware

Skype users who have been getting strange error messages from Microsoft's security products over the past week can breathe easy now. It was all a mistake.

Microsoft said Wednesday that a buggy antivirus definition update, released Friday, had mislabeled Skype as pop-up adware program called Win32/Vundo.gen!D. The issue was fixed Monday in a signature update so users who have version 1.31.9121.0 of Microsoft's malware signature file should be fine.

Microsoft's security products were not removing Skype, simply blocking it from running, so users should not have to install any new software once they've updated their antivirus definitions. "Once the signatures are updated on the user's machine, Skype will operate normally," Microsoft's public relations agency said in a statement.

The buggy update affects Forefront Client Security, Windows Live OneCare and Windows Live OneCare Safety Scanner, but not Windows Defender or the Malicious Software Removal Tool that ships with Windows.

Microsoft's gaffe was an annoyance for users, but security products often mistakenly report legitimate software as malware, called a "false positive," by security experts. Two years ago, for example, Sophos identified legitimate Mac OS X files as malware.

Fring brings Skype to the iPhone

Fring, the VoIP client that integrates with various VoIP networks including the ubiquitous Skype, is now available for the iPhone - providing exactly the kind of application that Steve Jobs stated wouldn't be allowed.

Fring started out as a mobile client for accessing Skype, though the application now connects to all sorts of networks including MSN, Google pTalk and AIM, thus providing an identity-aggregator for mobile use. It's been available for Series 60 and Windows Mobile for a while, though the company still has no understandable business model as such.

Skype has claimed that creating a mobile client, for anything other than Windows Mobile, is too technically challenging and that they are still working on it; though in reality it's probably more of a problem getting Skype's protocols to work over the mobile networks. Fring cheats somewhat by using its own protocol, which was designed for mobile use, and then providing a gateway into Skype and its brethren.

Fring isn't the only way to get VoIP onto the iPhone, or an iPod Touch, but it's certainly the most compatible. Mobile VoIP provider Truphone demonstrates a client for the iPhone back in September last year, though some claimed that the software was not as functional as it appeared. Quite why Fring has been able to launch its client, while Truphone hasn't, isn't clear: Truphone hasn't responded to our enquiry, but it could well be that the company is trying to avoid annoying Apple.

But annoy Apple this surely will - Steve Jobs stated explicitly, when he launched the official iPhone developer's kit, that VoIP applications would not be welcome. Apple is hoping that the vast majority of iPhone users will never unlock their handsets to install unofficial software, but something like Fring could well be the killer application that turns iPhone users to the dark side of unlocked apps and a download-from-anywhere philosophy.

Why Skype Should be Sold to Google

By Rich Tehrani
President and Editor-in-Chief

There are now rumors circulating that Google will buy Skype. these rumors are not new — I wrote about this as recently as November 20 of 2007.


But they did die down for a while and have been renewed. I have heard wild claims like the valuation of Skype is in the multibillion dollar range, etc.

I should mention that I have tremendous admiration for the people at Skype who developed software that tens of millions of people use. I am frequently blown away when I use the software myself and see over ten million people online at one time.

Having said that, Skype is a poster child for IP communications. Certainly not the only one but many think of them as a barometer for the market. Vonage too is thought of as a barometer of the communications space. Sadly, the two of these companies have done nothing to help the communications space these past few years. Quite the opposite in fact.

But Vonage (News - Alert) is not the topic of this article... Skype is. And even if free software, which sits on your PC has nothing to do with session border controllers, some in the investment community like to lump the companies together.

What this means of course is that to have the healthiest communications market — and especially an IP communications market — we need to ensure Skype does well.

Certainly this may not be possible. In other words perhaps there is no way for Skype to ever make more money than they do now. In fact, perhaps when Motley Fool writes about just how atrocious the Skype purchase was for eBay I should just accept it. Maybe the company is doing its best and still can’t make big profits.

But I am 100 percent sure that the company’s management could do a lot better. In fact I wrote an entry titled What eBay Should do with Skype where I outlined steps the company should take.

Here they are once again:

1. Enhance the social network capabilities: Skype currently is in a good position to expand into social networking via Facebook-like features. They have added some community services but not enough to be taken seriously as a real social network. Some analysts place Facebook’s value at $100 billion. This is obviously an area the company should be going after more seriously.
2. Show some ads: Let’s see if I understand the situation. You have over five million users on your service almost every moment of every day. You need to increase revenue. Your answer? Show no ads. If I were eBay I would be flashing product listings in front of Skype users as often as possible. If this doesn’t make sense, why not show Google ads like everyone else in the world? It is tough to see where this isn’t a $100 million/year revenue opportunity — this amount may seem high but think about how long people use Skype each day and consider you can flash new ads in front of users constantly. Moreover, probably $90 million would flow to the bottom line. eBay’s P/E ratio is currently about 40 so this amount of earnings could translate into about $3.6 billion in market capitalization. Not showing ads is something I can’t conceivably understand.
3. Enter the enterprise VoIP market: Cbeyond (News - Alert) has a market cap of over a billion dollars and provides hosted communications to just a few cities in the U.S. Zennstrom first told the world at Internet Telephony Conference & EXPO that Skype was very popular in the business space. Why was this never monetized in a formal manner?
4. Provide paid recording capabilities: With the regulatory environment forcing so many companies to record phone calls and so many Skype users in the world, you have to offer a recording service to help those companies who need to capture Skype IM and voice calls within their organizations. My revenue estimate? $25–$100 million/year.
5. Skype trunking: This technology is one of the most intriguing around — allowing companies to communicate with branch offices, customers and home workers at a low cost. I feel going forward every company should take advantage ofSIP trunking and Skype trunking. Skype knows this. So the question I feel compelled to ask is why would they do not work more closely with partners such as VoSKY and actually market Skype trunking products to customers in a more serious way. VoSKY is doing a good job but why is there not a multimillion dollar Skype ad budget behind VoSKY and others? Why leave the success of this massive market in the hands of partners when you can ensure the rapid success of this burgeoning new space yourself? The reason may be that Skype was built as a viral platform and they except this to be the only way to sell. Ditto for eBay. Guess what? Companies likeAvaya ( News - Alert), Cisco, Dialogic and Quintum sell telecom equipment and/or gateways and they have to market to customers. To be serious in the business space, Skype needs to start a serious partner program where they fund the marketing of companies which help their own paid services increase.
6. Go after the PBX vendors: If I am a PBX (News - Alert) vendor I would be looking for Skype interoperability as a differentiator. Still, I have yet to see an ad touting PBX vendor’s Skype Interop. Why?
7. Charge for something beyond just connecting to the PSTN: Charge for conferencing, enhanced video, the ability to get new features first, for the ability to use the service without having to see ads, etc.
8. Partner with media companies: Work with content providers and stream programming via the Skype client. Make money through subscriptions and ads.
9. Take on the world’s biggest auction houses with Skype video enabled live auctions. If eBay can pull off selling cars, it can pull this off as well.
10. Embrace Skype: I have a weird question. Companies all over the world are integrating their customer service departments with gateways allowing callers to use Skype to call in. Isn’t it odd that PayPal doesn’t accept Skype phone calls? If you want companies to integrate with Skype — which will obviously increase revenue — doesn’t it make sense to lead by example?
11. Embrace enterprise video: Video is enjoying resurgence and Skype has a well-known brand name and has a pretty good video solution. What about offering a video plan for businesses which will be cheaper than existing solutions on the market but priced high enough to generate real revenue?

Some of these things have been done already but for the life of me I cannot understand why I am not bombarded with ads when I use Skype. Of course eBay ads should be shown. If we approximate the number of users on Skype at any given moment to be conservatively 8 million, there should easily be 25 million people using the software each day.

There is gold in those connections. By not showing ads in fact, I believe eBay is at risk of shareholder lawsuits.

But for whatever reason, the company has not chosen to embark upon many of the ideas above. Frankly, there is no crystal ball that says these ideas will bring in a billion more in revenue but the cost of trying most of them is peanuts and not doing anything is guaranteed to produce similar results to what the company is now experiencing.

So in my opinion, I think having Skype sold to another company will be good for the entire communications space. Perhaps the company needs a fresh start and some time to try anything and everything that will get the cash register ringing.

Google is a great partner because they have the ability to show ads from the largest ad network in the business. More importantly, they have technology which can recognize spoken words and show the appropriate ads based on keyword.

In a way, we should think of Skype the same way we think of YouTube (News - Alert)... An extremely successful multimedia platform with tens of millions of users where ads can be laser targeted.

I should mention that I did reach out to Skype regarding the Google acquisition and they mentioned that they do not comment on speculation and rumors. Of course this was what we all expected.

I suppose the next time I reach out to the company I should ask them about my ideas. Am I way off base? If so perhaps the company could clue me in as I would love to see Skype continue to grow, not only in users but in revenue.

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Rich Tehrani is President and Group Editor in Chief at TMC. In addition he is the Chairman of the world’s best attended IP Communications event, Internet Telephony Conference & EXPO.