RadioShack putting Skype on U.S. map
Skype, the Internet-calling phenomenon that eBay
acquired for $4.1 billion, is set to break into the U.S. consumer mainstream by
selling its telephone kits in RadioShack stores.
Skype, the Internet-calling phenomenon that eBay acquired for $4.1 billion, is set to break into the U.S. consumer mainstream by selling its telephone kits in RadioShack stores.
Skype, which counts 66 million users of its free- and low-cost Web-based telephone services, mainly in Europe and Asia, said Sunday that it would distribute Skype phone gear through 3,500 RadioShack stores.
The move into retail promises to raise Skype's profile with U.S. broadband clients who have begun using alternatives to traditional phone systems that rely on Internet connections on computers or phones from Vonage, SunRocket and others.
Skype, which has signed up 20 to 30 times more users than other broadband phone alternatives, offers software to allow users to call other computers or phones. It works like a music file-sharing service and needs no central phone network switches as Vonage does, making it cheaper to operate.
By next March, I intend to lose my landline -- keeping just my cell numbers. The only sorting I need is my occasional TiVo phone call. Whether that will be via PPP or Skype or a device bringing my cell service into household wiring -- is to be resolved.
Posted: Mon - November 21, 2005 at 01:03 PM