Originally Posted by
David-A
Erm, as for the free bit regarding wifi:
Think about it as free drinks in a club lounge, or seats in a depature lounge. They cost money, but the question is whether you should charge at the point of use - or accept them as out goings to provide the enviroment for your commercial operation.
In which case why don't airlines offer free long distance calling from their lounges?
Originally Posted by
David-A
As for skype being a long term business model:
Think about it, what is the cost that needs to be covered: the capacity is the internet connectivity (paid for by the customer, not skype), therefore the costs for skype-to-skype are just associated with the coordination of the environment (and certianly low enough to be absorbed by a company looking to sell premium options in that environment).
No, not quite - you're seeing an internet connection as somehow different from a long distance phone line. They are fundamentally the same. It takes just the same bandwidth that someone has to pay to install and maintain, whether you transmit a conversation in the time honoured fashion or whether you transmit it using an IP protocol. So if skype haul the conversation across the Atlantic, either they're getting a free lunch somewhere, which is unsustainable, or there has been a massive cross subsidy of telephone charges which may also have been true.