Skype

The Economist has a good story this week on the demise of the telephone business. POTS, or plain old telephone service, is in it's last days. The story talks about the recent sale of Skype to EBay for a little over $2 billion dollars. Skype, a software company, has never made a profit and it's revenues have never exceeded $70 million. But...they have a software package that allows for simple voice transmission via your computer and a broadband connection. Skype is not the only software firm that does this, but their software is easy to use, it's free and they already have a loyal following of Skype fans.

The gist of the article was that since voice transmission has become digital and broadband has become so easily available, there is less reason to use the old copper wires provided by the telephone company. And in fact, most telephone companies recognize this and have diversified their interests. In the future, (the near future!) your broadband connection will be your multimedia connection, giving you internet access along with television and telephone. And just like e-mail, phone calls will have to be free if a provider wants to be competitive.

I have had Skype on my computer for the past 3 years, or just about ever since they started in business. But...I rarely use it. Perhaps it's time for me to crawl under the desk and connect my headset to the computer again.

As a rule, I hate using the telephone and go out of my way to avoid it...will a computer driven phone effect me the same way? Or will I find the Skype phone to be just fascinating enough (technically) to make me a fan?