back to article Skype inks deal to tack payments onto your mobile bill

Microsoft's VoIP operation Skype has signed a deal with MACH linking customers' Skype accounts and their mobile bills, allowing them to bypass credit card firms and PayPal when they cough up their payments. The deal won't see Skype minutes on mobile bills, but it will enable customers to buy Skype minutes using the mobile or …

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  1. badmonkey

    Neutral traffic?

    Just so long as they don't try to restrict Skype and other VOIP traffic over their data networks.

    Which certain telcos would love to do, I'm sure.

    I'm surprised the operators would go for it actually - what's in it for them, other than a small commission? They are making it easier for their customers to circumvent their overpriced calling services.

    1. P. Lee

      re: Neutral traffic

      Tiered services perhaps? Skype identifies its traffic so telcos can make it a bit worse than proper voice, if telcos will allow skype to bill via their service and are willing to split revenue.

      Just my guess.

  2. Bernt Oestergaard
    Holmes

    Verizon - first to join?

    With Verizon's endorsement of the Nokia Lumia Windows 8 mobe, helping Microsoft's Skype outfit onto the mobile phone bill seems a logical next step. It would be interesting to see how the Apple vs. Microsoft/Skype revenue model looks like from the mobile operator perspective: less handset subsidy certainly and more carrier visibility into skype usage patterns.

  3. multipharious

    Billing they have down...try pulling your credit card details...

    Has anyone tried to do ANYTHING with the financials of your Skype account lately? Oh sure, click a link to add credits, and it goes right through like you are the only client connected to their servers. Other links for purchase history and so forth? Completely unavailable. 404 through the website, and through the client? Well, it claims you are offline. Not to mention atrocious response time for adding contacts...which means that credits get eaten by calls getting forwarded to phones. Disabled forwarding now that all my credits are gone. Cannot get to anything resembling a purchase history etc screen. Then browsing the Support? Page loads are worse than a shared connection over 14.4kbps. Complete meltdown over at the Skype Server Farms?

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