Somewhere over the weekend or on Monday I got a note about Skype now being interoperable with SIP.
One thought immediately crossed my mind. DEATH TO 800/Toll free numbers. Slow. Painful. Death.
You see as more and more people adopt Skype and use it to call out the one missing piece has been how in essence all Skype calls, like SIP to SIP calls are TOLL FREE.
More and more we see click to call popping up on web sites. Toss in SIP trunking which is how companies like Jaduka (now run by pal Thomas Howe) and client IfByPhone move calls using all kinds of 2.0 technology and you see a pattern emerge. Now every call is a local call. And every call from Skype to a Skype to SIP number made from Skype is a free call.
Yummy. Disruptive.
All of a sudden your commercial business name as a Skype ID becomes very valuable. Think in terms of a URL. Now your Skype ID is one too, but it's really a SIP URI in drag. Yes. I know, that's twisted, but Skype to SIP is too and it's validation of the whole concept of SIP being THE telephony platform.
This new direction from Skype (well it's not really NEW) is a boon to the VoIP federations like those started by Earthlink and Gizmo years back, and to the companies like client xConnect who are smack dab in the middle of making sure calls get to where they are supposed regardless of network.
What's more, forget all the SIP techie stuff. This is just great for people who have to call anyone.
Hey Andy -
I think this might be a bit bold but I'll roll with it. Skype confirming our feelings all along that SIP is the de facto VoIP standard is a good thing. The Skype SIP support falls short however.
The promise of SIP is that every PERSON has a URI which can be reached from anywhere. This looks more like SIP Trunking in Drag to me.
It would be nice if an OnSIP user could reach a Skype user via a SIP address.
Posted by: Rob Wolpov | March 24, 2009 at 06:44 AM