Orange and O2 Angry Over Skype-Nokia Partnership?
By Simon Sage on Thursday, February 26th, 2009 at 8:35 AM PST In Applications, Nokia, O2, Orange, Partnerships, Rumors, VoIP
Remember that announcement about Skype being preloaded on the Nokia N-series from Mobile World Congress? Well, Orange and O2 (NYSE: TEF) aren’t too happy about the VoIP operator taking a bite from their voice revenues. Rumors are floating around that both carriers might pull their N97 stock should the Skype deal go through,and even pull other Nokia (NYSE: NOK) handsets packing Skype. 3 and T-Mobile (NYSE: DT) have been hunky-dory with Skype preloads, but an internal source at one of the purportedly furious companies wasn’t shy about voicing their discontent.
“This is another example of them trying to build an ecosystem that is all about Nokia and reduces the operator to a dumb pipe. Some people like 3 may be in a position where it could make sense to accept that. But if you spend upwards of £40m per year building your brand, you don’t want to be just a dumb pipe do you? Nokia have tried several ways to own the customer over the years and operators have had to say no.”
End users have a lot to gain from cheaper rates, but mobile operators understandably have their qualms about becoming a “dumb pipe”. If there’s the demand though, is that the future of carriers?
[via Mobile]
Guess what guys. Operators ARE ALREADY dumb pipes, that’s why they need the 2-year contracts and the lack of portability etc.
They are not getting with the program and they are just 100 years behind the curve. Too bad. On the other hand there’s a lot of money to made in piping. I mean look at the Plumbing industry!
I’d be happy with Skype just so that I could see whether my friends were available, let alone make any VoIP calls
It’s not like the operators have done much to push presence.
It’s ironic that Nokia offered operators a 2-year head start by embedding an operator-friendly VoIP client into its WiFi-enabled devices. What did operators do? Demand removal of said client.
I don’t know if operators are “dumb pipes” already, but the label “dumb” fits these dinosaurs.
I think Orange and O2 should be happy with the Nokia, skype partnership because it opens the door for other VoIP providers like Jajah, Vopium and Truphone. As Truphone’s CEO took this as an opportunity.