Forever is a long time as the L.A. Times observes. At one time that was the party line at Skype where they claimed that they would never be charging users for Skype-to-Skype calls. That was before they took their VoIP service mobile. The L.A. Times article notes that although Skype once hoped to always have Skype-to-Skype calls free between users, the company has departed from its previous ideals with its future vision of iPhone 3G Skype-to-Skype calls. The company hasn't revealed the fee-structure yet, maintaining that at the moment the calls will remain free. Skype wouldn't comment on the fees and AT&T wouldn't comment on whether it would be interested in splitting the fees to cut the costs for consumers. Skype only said that it was time to find ways to monetize their service.

As most industry watchers know, wireless spectrum is finite and the buildout to handle all that wireless data is expensive. The cost savings from VoIP technology will transfer to the wireless space, but perhaps not as easily as on the desktop. Perhaps AT&T is not interested in splitting fees for Skype users because perhaps the plan involves AT&T taking a cut of the fees in order to pay for the cost of the bandwidth to run all those Skype calls over 3G. Just a thought.

By Mike Dolan.