Wednesday, January 13, 2010

Skype "Dial Tone" No Threat to Mobiles, Fixed Lines

About 21.5 million Skype users were logged in simultaneously on January 11, 2010, which likely is a record.

Some refer to this as "Skype dial tone."

To give you some idea of how far Skype would have to go to be a credible alternative to other forms of consumer voice, consider that in March 2009 there were 4.1 billion mobile subscriptions in service, according to the International Telecommunications Uniion. The ITU also estimates there are about 1.3 trillion fixed lines in service globally.

So make that 5.4 billion devices that have "dial tone," compared to a third of a percent of Skype accounts, at peak. To the extent communications really does depend on network effects, Skype has quite some ways to go.

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