Getting access to mobile networks is critical for Skype. There must be another argument against it other than: ‘It is against the rules.’” “That is another way of using the same infrastructure. Kroes said before the Industry, Research and Energy panel. “It is imperative that VoIP can be done,” Ms. Kroes said blocking VoIP violated network neutrality.

14 before a European Parliament committee, Ms. In Europe, the new commissioner for digital issues, Neelie Kroes, has indicated she might put pressure on wireless operators to allow VoIP service on their networks. imposed no-discrimination rules on buyers of 700-megahertz spectrum, which is being converted from analog television use to cellular data. Business WireĬarriers in the United States could have more difficulty blocking VoIP services as they introduce 4G data networks, faster than 3G. Josh Silverman, Skype's chief executive, right, with John Stratton, chief marketing officer of Verizon Wireless, in Barcelona. “Such practices illustrate how operators’ business models based on control and discrimination of data flows really harm competition as well as the fundamental freedom of communication allowed by Internet,” said Jérémie Zimmermann, the director of La Quadrature du Net, a group in Paris that opposes efforts to control public access to the Internet. By 2013, the number of Internet-ready mobile phones will surpass the number of computers in the world for the first time, according to Gartner, a research firm. However, the barriers to Skype and similar Internet calling services, like Google Voice, are coming under increasing scrutiny as the Internet goes mobile. German customers of the Vodafone Group can use the service for an extra 5 euros a month. In Germany, customers of T-Mobile can place calls using Skype, but only if they pay an extra 10 euros, or $13.60, a month. Some carriers are imposing fees to undermine Skype’s attraction.

But many other cellular operators still block its calls, prohibit their customers from downloading Skype’s software or outlaw the use of VoIP service in standard sales contracts. In Europe, Skype is carried by the company 3 in Britain, Ireland, Austria, Denmark, Italy and Sweden. AT&T, the exclusive American carrier for the iPhone, has said that it would allow Skype and voice-over-Internet-protocol services to operate on its 3G network, but Skype has not made an application available. In the United States, Skype is blocked on mobile networks, and the service is available only on the Apple iPhone over Wi-Fi.

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