Nokia N97 Skype plans upsetting mobile operators

Posted by Al Warmington on Mon 2 Mar 2009

VoIP plans putting networks in a hissy-fit

There’s a real barney kicking off between Nokia and UK mobile operators, Orange and O2. Trouble’s brewing over the Finn’s promise to pre-install Skype on its smartphone handsets, a move which obviously has the potential to eat into call revenues.

According to Mobiletoday, Orange and O2 “responded furiously” to Nokia’s Skype announcement and are threatening to refuse to stock the N97 (along with any other Nokia device packing Skype). The operators are believed to have shared strong words with the upper echelons of Nokia's management.

On the record, both Orange and O2 have kept their feelings quite quiet, but there’s still a note of disdain in O2’s only statement: “We are currently working with Nokia to understand their Skype service and the business model around it”.

One anonymous source went into more depth “This is another example of them trying to build an ecosystem that is all about Nokia and reduces the operator to a dumb pipe. Some people like 3 may be in a position where it could make sense to accept that. But if you spend upwards of £40m per year building your brand, you don’t want to be just a dumb pipe do you?”

No, but we're equally sure customers won't be thrilled about paying over the odds for calls, losing useful software functionality and having their phone setups dictated to them, simply because their operator wants to be a 'cage-rattling pipe'.

T-Mobile has shown support for the scheme and 3 is expected to be on-board, seeing as it has already dipped its toe into Skype equipped handsets.

Link: Nokia (via PocketGamer)