Skype coming to Nokia Phones: War of the Free VOIP

in Gadgets by Francis Simisim — February 19, 2009 at 11:38 AM | 7 comments

I’ve always wanted Skype on my e71 Nokia phone and have never found it ever since. I’ve then used alternatives like Fring and Nimbuzz, which integrated a number of messenger services like Yahoo messenger, MSN messenger, Skype, etc. and other apps like Gmail alerts and Facebook. But now Skype is finally coming to Nokia Phones (news from MobileCrunch). It’s going to be released on Quarter 3 of 2009, for the Nokia n97.

Having a Full version of Skype in a Nokia Handset will definitely change the way we do our phone calls, I’ve spent countless amount of cash on Long distance calls before and I could’ve saved so much if Skype were around (to virtually zero, well except the internet bills). But can Skype compete with the early settlers like Fring and Nimbuzz? I believe so, most people know skype as a way to make free calls using the Internet and with this partnership and raising awareness to newbie users on mobile, it might just give them the upper hand. However, Fring and Nimbuzz could still dominate the market if they were able to provide Voice chatting on other platforms such as Yahoo messenger etc.

It will be very interesting to see where this all leads to, but whatever it is, it benefits us all. The war just makes things cheaper and more affordable for everyone to use.

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Author: Francis Simisim

Founder of TechFilipino, Tech Enthusiast, Internet savvy, and Gadget Explorer. I blog for what I enjoy and love doing. To know more please read more About Me. Twitter & Facebook or my other blog Menllionaire

SID

I was reading on a blog about another service called vopium, thread title was Vopium: the alternative mobile Skype? is this a different application or what?
http://www.gangventures.com Francis Simisim

That’s right, it could be an alternative. But honestly I haven’t tried or have seen much about Vopium, till you commented. However, it seems like a nice solution to solve a big problem with lost or stolen mobile phones. I’ll try to find out more and I’ll be posting about it soon.
SID

Thanks for your feed back and looking forward to have more details about this new application on your blog
http://thirdworldpc.blogspot.com Dodot

I too am excited about pending Skype’s first-party support for Nokia phones – the collaboration between these two componies is likely to result in an organic integration of Skype’s VOIP services with the rest of the supported phones’ functionalities. That being said, I’m pretty happy with the implementation of Skype calls on Nimbuzz and Fring. Even on my E63′s UMTS (through Smart), I’ve been able to make calls with sufficient clarity; on WiFi, the quality is generally even better. Also, I think Fring offers voice calls not just over Skype, but also over Google Talk (although I’ve yet to test this myself). Has your VOIP experience with either Nimbuzz or Fring been less than acceptable?
http://www.gangventures.com Francis Simisim

@Dodot: exactly, what’s interesting is “how integrated” the skype will be with the Phones. I’ve used both Nimbuzz and Fring, Voice quality is superb on my phone along with the integration of other IM services. But I’m expecting when it’s Skype that does this, they’ll be giving a much better quality of service so probably video and voice quality will be enhanced.
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Sweet, just gotta share this.