What about other countries? will Apple still restrict it for everyone's else?

What is the date they will open up the doors for skype on the 3g network?

What about the Palm Pre?

Now, if we only had it for the Blackberry like we were supposed to last May

It's a step in the right direction.

When will the new 3G enabled Skype App be available for the iPhone?

Will Skype come to an agreement with Three (specifically Three Mobile Australia, aka Vodafone Hutchison) to allow the Skype App to incorporate and be able to use the "free Skype minutes" over their 3G Network that Three offer with their data plans?

Hi,
Do you have plan to launch Skype on Android platform? Now I have installed Skype Beta version in HTC Hero phone, but only Skype IM is free, and andy incoming or outgoing calls (included:Skype to Skype call) will be charged. But it is free in any platforms. Such as, Windows, Linux, PSP...etc.

"The positive actions of one company are no substitute for a government policy that protects openness and benefits consumers. We're all looking forward to further developments that will let people use Skype on any device, on any network."

Is this a polite way of saying you want laws passed that force your competitors, against their will, to help you become more successful? If so, I'm very disappointed to hear it. I'll be fighting your efforts and urge anyone else who values freedom and property rights to do the same.

Great news. I wish there were laws that let people choose the way they want to communicate, and be able to use any network, any application or system. This openness can make life for you a little difficult, because what is good for you can be good for your competitors, but competition is good for the users and customers, and good services will benefit, no matter what they are.

Does this mean Apple Push Notifications will be supported as well? It would be absolutely great if it would be possible to get a notification of an incoming call, push 'OK' and have Skype open and accept the call over Wifi or 3G.

Yeah, push notifications seem like the best thing after the 3G connectivity to ever happen for the Skype App.

I am just trying to find out when skype will release an Iphone update to connect with the AT&T 3G network.

This is in response to markwickens who either really does not understand what he is talking about (so typically passionately mind you) or is working for AT&T (in which case he is minding his interests more than interests of public at large).

But to clarify, let's talk in metaphors. Imagine that instead of bandwidth AT&T is renting out a road from A to B, and that say for $30 a month you were told you could transfer 6 tonnes of bricks (brick are akin to internet protocol packets) on the road.

But once you start transporting your bricks from A to B, AT&T informs you that you are not allowed to transfer bricks manufactured by company X. All other bricks are fine, but company X's bricks are not.

Now brick is a brick is a brick. So, so how come AT&T is allowed to tell me what bricks I'm allowed to transport, when clearly they sold me the right to transport 6 tonnes of bricks?

This is what net neutrality is. It says a road is open for all bricks to be transported, it does not matter where the bricks originated or where they are going. If you sold someone a right to use the road, then they can really use the road. If you are worried about people transferring too many bricks on the road, increase the price and make your road be less attractive.

veritas.divina: I'll ignore your first paragraph.

This has nothing to do AT&T changing the rules of a contract after it's been made. The law Skype apparently favors would prohibit carriers and customers from entering into a contract whereby the terms are made clear up front. No one has a right to use AT&T's "road." If you don't like the terms they're offering, don't do business with them.

markwickens: It's not as simple as that. It's not AT&T's "road" that AT&T built through its own labor and efforts, it's the public radio spectra.

AT&T has been given a monopoly by the Federal Government (i.e. "We the People") to use certain radio waves. Nobody else can use those radio waves. If Skype wants to offer its service, it can't just build its own cell towers.

The cell industry is already highly regulated. This debate is not about freedom versus unfreedom; the fact that the government keeps everyone but a few licensees from running cell towers means that the wireless spectra are already unfree. It needs to be this way because of the physical nature of the spectra.

Since the spectra need to be regulated, the regulators should craft the laws to maximize the value to the people who own them (again, "We the People"), not the people who are being paid to maintain them. AT&T should be given just enough income to pay for its operating costs. Any profits gained by AT&T are made at the expense of the real owners of the spectra.

This is not even a radical or socialist notion. In a well-functioning free market, new suppliers continue to enter the market until the profits equal zero (i.e. the revenue of each company just covers its operating expenses). In a free market, if there are more profits to be gained, companies will lower their prices to compete until the profit margin is zero. AT&T does not play in a fair and free market because they are given a monopoly (or close to it, there are only a few players). Because the market is not free and fair, and cannot be, the rules of the monopoly should be written to reach the result a free market would.

There is no doubt that if any company that wanted to could enter the wireless service industry, some companies would offer neutral networks that would be cheaper for the customers. Because we cannot let competition get us there, we should craft the regulations to put us in the right spot at the beginning.

Free our packets!

alanlke:

"the wireless spectra are already unfree. It needs to be this way because of the physical nature of the spectra."

Not true. There's no practical reason that transmission frequencies can't be bought, sold, and owned in the same way that land and other tangible property is. Yes, the government highly regulates the airwaves. The solution to the problems that causes is not to impose further regulations, but to repeal the existing ones.

I recommend these articles for more information:

"Open Access" and the Tyranny of the FCC
http://www.aynrand.org/site/News2?page=NewsArticle&id=15870&news_iv_ctrl=1021

Net Neutrality: Toward a Stupid Internet
http://www.theobjectivestandard.com/issues/2008-winter/net-neutrality.asp

Markwickens:

I said:

"the wireless spectra are already unfree. It needs to be this way because of the physical nature of the spectra."

You said:

"Not true. There's no practical reason that transmission frequencies can't be bought, sold, and owned in the same way that land and other tangible property is. Yes, the government highly regulates the airwaves. The solution to the problems that causes is not to impose further regulations, but to repeal the existing ones."

I respond:

This is not inconsistent with what I said. You value strong property rights in the spectra. You also believe that the property rights should be privately held and alienable.

Strong property rights are (an arguably good kind of) unfreedom. If you hold a government-protected property interest in the exclusive use of a band of EM spectra, that means that you enjoy the protection of the power of government (the government's power of violence, at its essence) to prevent me from also broadcasting on that spectra.

From what you've said, you think that strong property rights on EM spectra are necessary for at least some of the same reasons I said they were. If you allow everyone to broadcast on a given frequency (i.e. you don't protect the property right) then that frequency becomes cluttered and useless. Each swath of spectra needs to be held by a single owner to the exclusion of others for the spectra to work technically.

Thus, we agree that some government regulation is necessary to make the spectra valuable. At the very least we agree that the government should protect the right of a single monopolist to control each unit of spectra.

Our point of disagreement is only with respect to who that owner should be. You believe that the original "discoverers" of the spectra, or, failing that, modern-day purchasers of the spectra should own freely alienable property interests in the spectra. I believe that the spectra should be held in trust by the government for the benefit of its citizens.

In support of your position, you state "The solution to the problems that causes is not to impose further regulations, but to repeal the existing ones." You do not try to support that proposition in your post, but refer me to the Epstein article and the Niles article, both written by self-described objectivists (i.e. students of Ayn Rand).

The Epstein article cites Ayn Rand for the proposition that the creators of the spectra (presumably, the people who first developed radio transmission) have an fundamental right to their creation and that the government owed it to them to divvy up and grant them monopolies in the airways. By the same logic, the Wright Brothers' estate should own the exclusive right to navigate the air.

The Epstein article goes on to discuss the frontier homestead laws in the American West. Epstein seems to think the land rush is evidence that discoverers have a fundamental right to own the land they discover. Ignoring the fact that people already lived on the frontier land before the homesteaders got there, the true purpose of the homestead laws was to provide good incentives for people to move out to the Western deserts. Living in the frontier lands was dangerous, difficult, and not something that many would have volunteered to do except for the incentive of free land.

Similarly, the United States (and most other countries) have decided that patent laws are useful to incentivize development of technology (think radio transmitters). See U.S. Constitution, Article I, Sec. 8 (the powers of Congress include: "To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries"). However, every country in the world limits the term of patents in order to strike a balance between promoting discovery (which benefits society) with preserving the freedom of people to practice modern technology.

If you have a strong moral belief that everything that a person invents, captures, or discovers, must belong to that person forever, then there's nothing more to discuss. I disagree, and I think you'll find that most philosophers, including the authors of the Constitution, disagree with you as well.

If you believe, as I do, that the purpose of property rights are to create incentives that benefit society, then we can have a discussion.

Coase teaches us that in cases where there are no transaction costs and no barrier to entry of a market, then deregulation and a free market will produce an efficient result. However, where transaction costs are high or where there is a high barrier to entry, there will be market failures and no efficient outcome.

We've already agreed that the market cannot have zero barriers to entry. There is a limited amount of spectra in each geographic region, and to be efficient only one broadcaster can be allowed on each unit. Moreover, there is so little spectra that in your proposed world (no regulations and freely alienable property rights in spectra), a single actor could obtain a monopoly on the airwaves.

It is empirical fact that monopolists charge inefficient prices for goods, provide an inefficiently low amount of goods, and fail to innovate. There are simply no incentives for a monopolist to do otherwise.

If you have an argument as to why deregulation would not result in a monopoly or cartel and/or why such a monopoly or cartel would innovate or provide other benefits to society, I'd love to hear it.

So when can we expect a skype iPhone app with 3G calling enabled?

I installed the 3.1.2 software update followed by a carrier profile update hoping that the skype over 3G functionality would be enabled but no such luck.

alanlke: I don't think we should make laws based on purported "benefits to society." Laws must protect *individual* rights. So, yeah, we're coming at the issue from quite different perspectives and with different goals. There are many details I disagree with in your latest comment, but since we disagree so fundamentally, and since the ethical basis of government is probably not a topic for the Skype blog, I'll bow out now. Check out Ayn Rand's "The Virtue of Selfishness" and "Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal" if you are interested.

Please help explain this to me, Josh Silverman (or whoever else can explain it), I'm new to all of this. You applaud AT&T for now allowing Skype calls on their 3G network, yet Skype won't allow us to make these calls? Is this correct? I just switched to AT&T and got an iPhone mainly so that I could Skype it up on 3G without worrying about a wifi connection... and my attempt was thwarted by the "Skype calls over 3G networks are currently not allowed due to contractual restrictions..." message. I thought these contractual restrictions were recently remedied. What am I waiting for now? For you guys to make a new iPhone App that allows 3G? If so, could you please make this like really soon? And do you have any info for all of us asking for this? Pretty please???
Thanks for listening

just another voice asking when there will be an iphone skype update that allows us to make calls over 3g.

i've had skype for iphone since it came out, and was a skype user for some time before that...was VERY excited to hear all the trumpeting that skype calls would be allowed over 3g, and tried to make a call a few days later. denied.

'skype calls over 3g networks are not allowed,' etc. what gives? at&t announced that they were now allowed. you all announced that they were allowed. even here, in the blog, josh, you don't mention the need for a skype update, just that you're pleased to announce that at&t is finally doing the right thing. i keep checking the app store for an update, but figured i'd go straight to the source. when can we expect to actually USE the new functionality?

thanks!

I'm wondering and echoing the same concerns as:

efrain.lugo - "What is the date they will open up the doors for skype on the 3g network?"

philnlil.net - "When will the new 3G enabled Skype App be available for the iPhone?"

tom_redden - "I am just trying to find out when skype will release an Iphone update to connect with the AT&T 3G network."

sammiebell - "What am I waiting for now?"

monkeytrumpet - "just another voice asking when there will be an iphone skype update that allows us to make calls over 3g"

So, that's 5 (6 including mine) DIRECT questions that have yet to be directly (or otherwise answered) on this one thread alone.

I have consulted the Googoracle time and time again approaching my search from a billion (ok maybe 10 or 12) different angles and can find absolutely no information... I am a paying Skype customer who recently signed up for the 3G solely for this and am now paying dearly for it - I know, not Skype's problem or fault - PLEASE, give us all something to go on, anything!!!

efrain.lugo - "What is the date they will open up the doors for skype on the 3g network?"

philnlil.net - "When will the new 3G enabled Skype App be available for the iPhone?"

tom_redden - "I am just trying to find out when skype will release an Iphone update to connect with the AT&T 3G network."

sammiebell - "What am I waiting for now?"

monkeytrumpet - "just another voice asking when there will be an iphone skype update that allows us to make calls over 3g"

Dr_porky - So, that's 5 (6 including mine) DIRECT questions that have yet to be directly (or otherwise answered) on this one thread

make that 7!!! When is this update coming this is extremely frustrating!! Can someone please respond!!

Just wanted to politely add my name to the list of those hoping to see an update soon that will allow 3g calls. Very much looking forward to it. Thanks.

I would also like to find out the progress on the new 3G capabilities that should be coming to Skype. I am aware that this service is dependant on Apple updating their API to allow Skype to do this; however, Skype must have some level of communication with Apple over this. If you could please let us know the status it would be greatly appreciated.

Please: When?!?

It is sad that so many companies still haven't learned the lesson that, no matter how bad the news, saying nothing in the face of your customer's questions is the worst possible strategy. You lose good will that is not regained even if you correct the problem.

Having said that, can you tell me how you are progressing with a version that will allow Skype calls on 3G?

Regards

It almost like saying comcast or any other cable/tv/internet provider saying you can use the internet for all things except videos... ie youtube hulu etc..

Tell us!

hi, again.

it's been a month since you announced that at&t was opening up the 3g network to skype and other voip applications. great news. now, is there any update on when skype will actually WORK on 3g?

i love skype, but am quite disappointed about this. not that you haven't updated whatever you need to update to get skype to work on 3g, but that you've ignored this thread and numerous requests for information from your paying customers. bummer.

an update would be nice. even 'we don't have anything yet but we're working on it' would be better than radio silence.

thanks.

I agree..I heard the CNBC interview yesterday and downloaded the application. Management not responding to the same question several times on their own blog is a great way to have people like myself whom never heard of Skype before quickly loose interest.

Until Apple changes its policy on allowing VoIP over 3G, we can’t release a version of Skype for iPhone which does this. Sit tight – I’m as hopeful as you are that it won’t be long

Well, I've made up my mind to cancel my account with you guys. I have lost hope for this happening anytime soon. What a waste. I really love how you force people to buy $10 worth of credit even if people have unlimited plans just to set up caller ID. Im told (after numerous email with customer support) that you need the credit to pay for 2 texts which your site lists as 11 cents each.