Skype phone from 3
James Kellerman
3 has launched a 3G cellular phone fully embracing Skype. All your calls and instant messages via skype to other skype users are included in the plan so long as you add at least £10 a month top your pay as you go account. The phone itself will retail for £49. This seems to be ahuge bargain particularly if you make lots of skype calls or even call to overseas numbers using skype out. What I think will be interesting about the device is how the introduction of presence information will affect how people use and ultimately see cell phones. With skypes rich presence aware contact list this will make ordinary contact lists look very old fashioned. The big question is what will the battery life be like whilst maintaining a connection to the skype network. I am also curious as to whether the device will act as a node in the skype peer to peer architecture. As more and more of these cell phone type skype join the skype cloud will it degrade the quality of the network?