{"id":328659,"date":"2010-02-17T04:24:45","date_gmt":"2010-02-17T09:24:45","guid":{"rendered":"tag:contentnext.com,2010-02-16:article\/419-verizon-teams-up-with-skype-to-drive-smartphone-and-data-plan-sales"},"modified":"2010-02-17T04:24:45","modified_gmt":"2010-02-17T09:24:45","slug":"verizon-teams-up-with-skype-to-drive-smartphone-and-data-plan-sales","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/328659","title":{"rendered":"Verizon Teams Up With Skype To Drive Smartphone And Data Plan Sales"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Despite most carriers\u2019 reluctance to roll out VoIP services, Verizon Wireless has done the unthinkable and has formed a partnership with none other than Skype.<\/p>\n

Up until now, carriers have been reluctant to adopt these services for the fear that it will cannibalize their voice revenues. But the intention of the partnership seems clear: to provide additional reasons for consumers to buy smartphones and sign-up for data plans. In a press conference at Mobile World Congress, John Stratton, EVP and CMO of Verizon Wireless: \u201cThe value prop is that we have 90 million customers who have in-calling, and now it expands to 580 million Skype users. Our customers can now call anyone in the world without using minutes. If you buy a smartphone and download a free app, you are good to go.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

The free app will be called Skype Mobile and will be available in March on most of Verizon\u2019s BlackBerry line-up in addition to the Motorola (NYSE: MOT<\/a>) Droid, HTC Eris and Motorola Detour. The prices will be consistent with what a user experiences on the PC. If calling within the Skype community, it’s free, if calling a landline you’ll have to pay Skype’s standard rates.<\/p>\n

Stratton was asked why they were willing to do it now. He said it’s because phone’s are capable of providing a good VoIP experience: “The phones are capable of multitasking, the interface can be delivered on a nice screen and there’s fast processors.”<\/p>\n

Verizon and Skype would not disclose details of the business arrangement. The software in this case has been co-developed and in that way is exclusive to Verizon, and “won’t be seen anywhere else in the U.S.,” added Stratton.<\/p>\n

As for whether it will cannibalize voice minutes, it won’t because Verizon will still require a voice plan. Stratton: “We think this is a nice compliment to our underlying voice services, and we’ll require a voice and data plan for customers who want to take advantage of it.”\n<\/p>\n

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Despite most carriers\u2019 reluctance to roll out VoIP services, Verizon Wireless has done the unthinkable and has formed a partnership with none other than Skype. Up until now, carriers have been reluctant to adopt these services for the fear that it will cannibalize their voice revenues. But the intention of the partnership seems clear: to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2853,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-328659","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/328659","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2853"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=328659"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/328659\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=328659"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=328659"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=328659"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}