Skype Stirs Up Trouble Between Apple and AT&T
Skype is hoping for irked consumers to demand AT&T to open up its 3G network to Skype calling on iPhone. They point to this article in USA Today: http://www.usatoday.com/tech/news/2009-04-01-att-skype-iphone_N.htm
It is a really bad idea. Their hope is misplaced. The solution is NOT for AT&T to simply void its contract with Apple. Neither would it be helpful to re-regulate. Rather, the solution will be found in more competition and more capacity in the wireless data business. The fact is that no carrier has enough of the right combination of capacity, build-out and technology to handle the exploding demand for wireless data. If there were no contract between Apple and AT&T, it would not solve a problem but rather just replace it with a different one. Nothing will work if existing networks are too suddenly confronted with new customers and new applications... and you can't ask the competitors to add capacity faster than their capital will allow them. You could of course nationalize the carriers and just print the money with which the networks can be built, but that would be monumentally stupid and make a mockery of all the good things that have come from deregulation. The contract between Apple and AT&T ends in 2012. By then LTE and WIMAX networks (4G) should be mostly built, 3G networks should have much more capacity, and EDGE will be a faint memory. In the meantime, Apple has already started offering an iPhone without an AT&T contract.... at a price of like $699. http://www.engadget.com/2009/03/19/atandt-confirms-contract-free-599-699-iphone-3gs-for-next-week. In other words, iPhone users (on new phones) are getting choices even while the AT&T contract is still in force. Moreover, AT&T is not blocking Skype on its WIFI networks. The restrictions apply only to its cellular networks that can't accept the new traffic anyway. The dream of "fat dumb pipes" to handle data indiscriminately is great, and it will eventually be a reality if free-market capitalism is allowed to do its job, but to hope for "fat pipes" to happen overnight is misplaced enthusiasm. Skype should know better than to stir up false hope and antagonism for a system that is coping with Skype's success as well as it can.
