Published in October 29th, 2007
WASHINGTON: The U.S. Federal Communications Commission, hoping to reduce the spiraling costs of cable television, is preparing to strike down thousands of contracts this week that shut out competitors by giving individual cable companies exclusive rights to provide service to an apartment building, the agency's chairman says.
The new rule could open markets across the United States to competition.
It would be a huge victory for Verizon Communications and AT&T, which have challenged the cable industry by offering their own video services. The two phone companies have lobbied aggressively for the provision. They have been supported in their fight by consumer groups, satellite television companies and small rivals to the big cable providers.
Commission officials and consumer groups said the new rule could significantly lower cable prices for millions of subscribers who live in apartment buildings and have had no choice in selecting a company for paid television. Government and private studies show that when a second cable company enters a market, prices can drop as much as 30 percent.
The change, which is set to be approved Wednesday, is expected to have a particular effect on prices for low-income and minority families. They have seen cable prices rise about three times the rate of inflation over the last decade. A quarter of American households live in apartment buildings housing 50 or more residents, but 40 percent of households headed by Hispanics and African-Americans live in such buildings.
“Exclusive contracts have been one of the most significant barriers to competition,” said Kevin Martin, chairman of the commission, in a recent interview. Cable prices have risen “about 93 percent in the last 10 years,” he said. “This is a way to introduce additional competition, which will result in lower prices and greater innovation.”
The decision is the latest in a series of actions by the commission under Martin to put pressure on cable companies to lower their rates and make their markets more competitive. In December, in a 3-2 decision, the commission approved a proposal by Martin to force municipalities to accelerate the local approval process for the telephone companies to enter new markets. The phone companies had asserted that many municipalities had been delaying approvals, often in the face of cable industry lobbying.
Last month, the commission approved a rule that requires the largest cable companies to provide programs produced by their affiliates to all of their rivals, including the phone companies and satellite television companies. The commission is also considering a proposal to make it less expensive for independent programmers to lease channels from cable companies.
Martin has also pressed the cable companies to offer so-called à la carte plans that would permit subscribers to buy individual channels, or groups of channels, at lower rates than they now pay.
The new rule would shift the bargaining power over cable and broadband services to apartment residents from landlords and tenant associations. It has been long sought by consumer groups as part of a broader effort to cut prices to the roughly 100 million households that pay for access to television.
The change would be an abrupt reversal for the commission, which only four years ago ruled that such exclusive agreements sometimes actually promoted competition by giving landlords the leverage to negotiate for the best terms.
Commission officials said they had prohibited other exclusive contracts involving telecommunications, including those in commercial buildings, but trade groups representing cable companies and building owners have indicated they may challenge the commission's move in court.
Commission officials said the rule aims to put an end to some common practices of landlords and tenant associations that have deprived tenants of choices. They said that in many communities, there has been only one cable provider, and while landlords and tenant associations could select a satellite television provider, the competition from those companies has not led to lower cable prices.
The cable companies have also managed to shut out competition by signing long-term exclusive deals. FCC officials said they hope opening the apartment doors to the telephone companies, which offer the same packages of television, broadband and phone services as the cable companies, will force the cable companies to cut their rates.
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Published in October 29th, 2007
NEW YORK (Reuters) - Hulu, an online video service formed by two U.S. media conglomerates, will begin a private test on Monday with two new partners in one of big media's most ambitious attempts to court viewers wherever they spend time. ADVERTISEMENT
The joint venture of General Electric's NBC Universal and Rupert Murdoch's News Corp, which earlier had trouble persuading other big content producers such as Viacom Inc and Walt Disney Co to join, now adds shows from Sony Pictures Television and Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios Inc., Hulu executives said. The long-awaited free, advertising-supported service makes its debut as consumer interest over watching video clips and television shows on the Internet. Despite Hulu's high powered backers, the service has drawn skepticism among media and Internet executives, who have struck out on their own by offering shows on its own sites and are either selling shows on Apple's iTunes or offering it for free on other. But these companies have yet to garner the hundreds of millions of viewers on such services as Google Inc's top online video sharing service YouTube. "We are still in inning No. 2 in the whole game of online video," Forrester Research analyst James McQuivey said, employing a baseball metaphor. Ahead of Hulu's anticipated public launch early next year, NBC Universal has stopped offering its shows for sales on iTunes and pulled its channel off of YouTube. On Monday, Hulu will offer about 90 TV shows from the four companies and smaller partners ranging from current prime-time hits such as "Heroes" and "The Simpsons" to vintage shows "Miami Vice" and "The A-Team." It will also make about 10 feature films available including "The Breakfast Club" and "The Blues Brothers." Shortly after the test begins, these shows will also be made available on a handful of the biggest online distributors Time Warner Inc's AOL, Comcast Corp, Microsoft's MSN and Yahoo. "Given that they're late, I have to admit that they've actually delivered more than I expected," said McQuivey. McQuivey pointed to the site's ability to let users share and embed entire shows or movies everywhere on the Web as surprising features to be offered by a service controlled by media companies who have spent its entire history directing where and when its shows can be accessed. NOT YOUTUBE KILLER Although framed in the press as big media's "YouTube-killer," Hulu Chief Executive Jason Kilar, a former executive, said the site aims to make it the premier destination for full length shows and movies. "We want to stand for a high quality approach to the content," Kilar said in a phone interview on Friday, who drew a distinction from YouTube's offering of video clips. Viewers could easily mistake the site for another dot-com start-up: one would be hard pressed to figure out who its corporate sponsors are as Hulu's minimalist design is stripped of network logos and largely consists of a white background with thumbnails of the shows adorning the screen. Videos are played in wide-screen format on the top of the screen, with an options to dim the entire screen, view it full screen, or as a separate smaller box separate from the site. One distinguishing features created by a team that consists almost entirely of executives from the Internet and technology industries, addresses an issue that is unique to its service — the ability to find a spot within a show that a viewer wants to share. The ability to share video or embed video clips of a funny or interesting moment on a show have existed legally and not for years on services like YouTube that restrict the uploading of videos to ten minutes. But access to full length shows presents a new problem — finding the right moment. Viewers can adjust a slider at the bottom of the video window to clip the exact spot within a show — a particularly funny skit on "Saturday Night Live" for instance — to send or embed on another Web page. Hulu also confirmed Providence Equity Partners has invested $100 million for an undisclosed stake in the company. Earlier, media reports said the stake valued the company at $1 billion.
Published in October 29th, 2007
Microsoft built a custom Windows Mobile user interface for a new phone that T-Mobile USA is announcing Monday, evidence that Microsoft may be getting more serious about pursuing the consumer mobile market. ADVERTISEMENT
The phone, built by HTC, will be the first in a line of phones from T-Mobile using the new Shadow brand, said David Sholkovitz, marketing manager at T-Mobile. (See PC World'sfirst look at the new T-Mobile Shadow.)
Close Partners
While Microsoft has worked with operators to help modify the operating system to fit their needs, this project represented a new level of partnership, said Doug Smith, director of marketing for Microsoft's mobile communications business. "I'd say this was one of the deeper partner involvements we've had on a new product," he said. The Shadow, which will hit stores on Wednesday, features a home screen that looks very different than other Windows Mobile phones. Users slide a wheel to navigate through icons on the screen that take them directly to e-mail, their music player and photos. The idea was to make it easier to use increasingly complicated phones, said Sholkovitz. The operator approached Microsoft about ways to alter the home screen in order to simplify it and prevent "feature fatigue," he said. "We wanted to create a product with the feature set that Windows Mobile products have but deliver it in a simple fashion that was user intuitive and icon based," he said. T-Mobile, Microsoft and HTC began working on the new user interface in November of last year. "I think this was rare for [Microsoft]," said Farah Houston, product development manager, T-Mobile. "We had access to a lot of resources I don't think they normally make available. Microsoft is trying to show they're serious about the consumer market and this is what they're willing to do."
Beyond the Enterprise
Windows Mobile, which works in tandem with Exchange to push corporate e-mail to the phones, has a reputation primarily as an enterprise tool. T-Mobile hoped to avoid that image with the Shadow and the keyboard design is meant to help. "When users see a full keyboard they think business and productivity," said Sholkovitz. "So we made it a hidden slide-out keypad." During a keynote speech at the CTIA I.T. and Entertainment conference in San Francisco last week, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmerdescribed what Microsoft thinks will attract consumers. "Consumers will want phones that span all of their life personas," he said. "My work life, my personal life, my life with my family, my life with my friends. People don't want to pull out multiple devices." Another Microsoft executive echoed a similar thought. "We can do multiple things in parallel," said Scott Horn, general manager of Microsoft's mobile group, also speaking at CTIA. "We can do both consumer and enterprise… You will see more devices appeal to the consumer side."
Eyeing the iPhone
The talk of consumer needs shows how the iPhone is likely affecting Microsoft's strategy, one analyst said. "There's no doubt the success that Apple had with the iPhone in terms of appealing to the mainstream end user market as opposed to the business market has not gone unnoticed," said Michael Gartenberg, an analyst at Jupiter Research. "Microsoft has built these devices to service and solve business needs but Microsoft understands the intersection of business and consumer." The declining price of Windows Mobile devices will make them more appealing to consumers, said Smith. The Shadow, as an example, will retail for $150 with a two-year voice and data contract. It will work with a new data plan from T-Mobile that costs $20 per month and includes unlimited data use and Wi-Fi access at T-Mobile hotspots. The phone will be displayed in T-Mobile stores along with other lower cost feature phones, not with the higher end smartphones, said Houston. Neither Microsoft nor T-Mobile would comment on intellectual-property ownership for the new software interface on the Shadow.
Published in October 29th, 2007
NEW YORK (Reuters) - Verizon Communications Inc (VZ.N) said on Monday that quarterly revenue rose due to strong wireless and Internet subscriber growth, although profit fell after merger-related costs and other items. ADVERTISEMENT
The second-largest U.S. phone company posted third-quarter net income of $1.27 billion, or 44 cents per share, compared with $1.92 billion, or 66 cents a share, a year earlier. Excluding items such as merger integration costs, access line spinoff-related charges and international taxes, profit was 63 cents per share, a cent above the analysts' average forecast of 62 cents, according to Reuters Estimates. Verizon said operating revenue rose to $23.77 billion from $23.46 billion, close to the $23.6 billion forecast by Wall Street. Verizon, like larger rival AT&T Inc (T.N), has benefited from strong growth in mobile phone subscriptions in the past few years. It owns Verizon Wireless with Vodafone (VOD.L). Verizon said the wireless business had added 1.8 million net new customers in the quarter. The company has also been focusing on expanding its FiOS fiber optic service, which it hopes will help it compete against cable operators' all-in-one packages of video, phone and Internet services. Verizon added 202,000 new FiOS TV subscribers in the third quarter, taking the total to 717,000. Including DSL, it added a net 285,000 new broadband connections, bringing the total to 8 million –an increase of 21.3 percent from a year earlier. The cost of deploying FiOS services hurt earnings by 9 cents per share. Verizon in September said it expected to invest $18 billion from 2004 through 2010 to deploy the FiOS network. Most analysts have said the investment, while costly, was necessary to offset a decline in home phone subscribers. But others have said it was a risky bet, preferring AT&T's more cost-conscious approach that uses less fiber. (Reporting by Ritsuko Ando)
Published in October 29th, 2007
Europeans are pretty used to paying through the nose for usage charges, whether it be by-the-minute charges for local calls in the landline days of yore, or per-KB charges for wireless data. The up side is that there are usually some pretty sweet prices on phones, since wireless companies know they can make it up on the back end, but for heavy users things can get expensive fast. And unfortunately, the glorious promises of “unlimited” data usage tacked onto iPhone plans offered by T-Mobile, O2 and Orange in their respective iPhone-exclusive markets aren’t quite the revolution we might’ve hoped for. T-Mobile just posted its rate plans for the , though it quickly pulled them from the site. Eagle-eyed observers grabbed a screenshot of the rates (pictured), but what’s notable is the fine print: depending on which plan you select — M, L or XL — you’re limited to 200MB, 1GB or 5GB of data, after which your data speeds are limited to 64Kbps, instead of EDGE’s traditional 220Kbps max. O2, whose rates have been up , has a slightly vaguer “fair usage policy” that gives O2 the right to slap you with extra charges or change your rate plan if you exceed 200MB of use, though they claim this rarely happens. Details on ’s rate plans for the iPhone haven’t emerged yet, but Orange France has historically some of the priciest unlimited data rates, and has a standing policy to just go ahead and slap per-KB charges once the limit is crossed. Let’s hope it doesn’t come to that.
[Thanks, Patrick]
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Published in October 29th, 2007
LOS ANGELES - NBC and Fox are set to launch an advertising-supported online video site that hosts programming from varied entertainment companies in a bid to seize viewers from Google Inc.’s YouTube, the broadcasters said. ADVERTISEMENT
A test version of the site, , goes online Monday, with plans to premiere a final version in a few months, company officials said. The site, developed by News Corp. and NBC Universal, a unit of General Electric Co., offers free viewing of full-length films and TV episodes, supported by advertising. It will host programming from the two networks, as well as TV shows and films from Sony Corp. and Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Inc. “Consumers identify with shows and films,” rather than networks, Hulu chief executive Jason Kilar said. “When you aggregate great content together, it makes things easier for the user.” Hulu’s debut comes amid tensions between entertainment companies and popular online video sites, such as YouTube, where unauthorized clips from shows often appear. Viacom Inc., which owns Comedy Central, MTV, VH1 and many other cable channels, is suing YouTube for $1 billion, claiming massive copyright infringement of clips from popular shows, including “The Daily Show with Jon Stewart.” YouTube has said it follows copyright laws by removing protected video upon request. Hulu will legally offer hundreds of episodes of current shows such as NBC’s “30 Rock” and Fox’s “The Simpsons,” as well as older shows such as “Lou Grant” and “Lost in Space.” Its movie offerings will consist of films that have already been edited for television broadcast, which will contain short ads online in the places where they would appear on TV. The shows will be available at Hulu.com, as well as on distribution partner Web sites such as AOL, MSN, MySpace, Yahoo and Comcast. It will also provide viewers with tools that let them embed full episodes on their own blogs, Web sites or personal profile pages. Users would also be able to select short clips from shows, such as Jay Leno’s monologue on “The Tonight Show,” and e-mail a link to the content to friends. The services give Web users unprecedented flexibility to legally republish copyright content, observers said. “The technology they’ve put together on this short notice is not only adequate, it’s also better than most of what else is out there,” said James McQuivey, a TV and media technology analyst for Forrester Research. “I think they have moved a couple of steps forward compared to their competitors in the industry.” Hulu will offer some premium content not available on NBC or Fox’s own Web sites in a move at odds with some other networks that have tried to direct viewers to their own online content. Walt Disney Co.’s ABC, for instance, sells downloads of its shows on Apple Inc.’s iTunes but streams free episodes mainly on . McQuivey said Hulu’s model could be preferable to advertisers, who generally favor strategies that make popular content widely available. “Advertisers want more opportunity to put ads next to prime-time hit shows,” he said. “If they had kept the content on or , it would have limited the number of people who would see it.” But McQuivey said Hulu faces a number of challenges, such as the expense of hosting content and delivering it to a potential audience of millions. Those expenses will only grow as the site finds itself having to offer content in high definition to make it look better on large-screen televisions, McQuivey said.
Published in October 29th, 2007
NEW YORK - After leaving the helm of the Internet’s key oversight agency, Vint Cerf plans to stay busy as an executive, advocate and author. ADVERTISEMENT
Five books are in various stages of completion, and Cerf said he would “deliberately sequester some of the time” freed up by stepping down from the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers. He estimates he has spent 25 percent to 40 percent of his time on ICANN business. “I don’t regret at all the time spent, (but) I’m looking forward to having the time back,” Cerf said. “If you multiply eight years by a quarter to 40 percent, that’s a lot of years.” Cerf’s chief duties will remain with Google Inc., where he has been “chief Internet evangelist” since 2005. Based in Virginia, Cerf maintains an office a few doors down from CEO Eric Schmidt at Google’s Mountain View, Calif., headquarters and often travels around the world, which he doesn’t expect to stop. Cerf also remains honorary chairman of the IPv6 Forum, advocating a next-generation numbering system to accommodate the ever-growing armies of Internet-ready gadgets, and assists NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory on extending the Internet’s reach into outer space. But Cerf says he looks forward to making progress on the books, on various topics reflecting his diverse range of interests. Only one will be about the Internet, which he helped develop as co-inventor of its fundamental communications protocols in the 1970s. “I hesitate to say the definitive history, but I will try very hard to characterize the first 10 years of it,” Cerf said, adding that he may extend the project to cover the first 20 years, before the Internet started to become mainstream in the 1990s. He’s also writing a biography on his wife, Sigrid. She was deaf until 1996, when at age 53 she had a cochlear implant and was able to hear for the first time since early childhood. She had an implant in her other ear last year. Cerf, who himself has been hearing impaired since age 13, plans to title the book “I Heard That” — “because that’s what she kept saying when the first implant was put in.” A literary magazine editor in high school, Cerf also plans a book on poetry he has written, as well as one on anecdotes — “ranging from the interesting people I’ve met to the awful puns and jokes I’ve heard.” The fifth book is on a concept he terms “bindings,” exploring how relationships are bound in the short and long term. Cerf said he has yet to look for publishers. Cerf has told ICANN board members and staff that he plans to disengage entirely from the organization for at least a year. He said he would skip public meetings and let his colleagues at Google handle any company-specific matters that come up before ICANN. “I absolutely need this time back, and I don’t want to hover over the process,” he said. “I want them to feel the pressure to organize themselves and not imagine they can turn back and look for guidance from me. They really should demonstrate that the organization is sufficiently strong and can survive the changes.”
Published in October 29th, 2007
Shinoda Plasma prepping 142-inch 720p “PTA” display for next year
Posted Oct 29th 2007 10:10AM by
Filed under: ,
It’s never easy keeping track of the largest HDTV out there, and then there’s all that display technology bickering to be done — do count, or how about ? Today’s “largest” flavor of the week is this new 142-inch Plasma Tube Array from . The good news is that this plasma-based bad boy boasts a 720p resolution, 1,000 nits of brightness and a contrast ratio of 10,000:1. The bad news is that the asking price is “several tens of million yen” (a few hundred thousand dollars), and the 3 x 2 meter display is composed of 1 x 1 meter squares that are slapped together on site. That cuts down shipping shipping costs, but means you’re not going to get a seamless picture — which is fine for most commercial applications that this thing is primarily built for, but does nothing for our Super Bowl plans. The display will start shipping in small quantities in 2008, with about 200 total planned for production.
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Published in October 29th, 2007
SAN JOSE, Calif. - The placards made clear this was not your typical immigrant rights march: “We played by the rules, now it’s your turn,” read one. “Legal immigrants keep America competitive,” read another. ADVERTISEMENT
High-tech workers here on federal permits are speaking out — many for the first time — over rules that leave them in personal and professional limbo. After Congress failed to reform immigration laws for the second year in a row, hundreds of the largely India- and China-born workers protested this summer in Silicon Valley and Washington, D.C. They were frustrated that the divisive debate over illegal immigration had overwhelmed efforts at comprehensive immigration reform. “I’ve never held a banner before, but I don’t know what else to do,” said Gopal Chauhan, a high-tech employee who has been waiting seven years for a green card. “We usually have better things to do, like invent the next iPod.” Legal immigrants who feel squeezed by limits on the number of green cards issued each year are trying to separate their complaints from the protests by illegal immigrants. And high-tech companies that say they can’t fill jobs because of a cap on skilled-worker visas have stepped up their long-standing plea for the cap to be raised. “It gets too frustrating sometimes,” said Sandeep Bhatia, a software engineer from Mumbai who first applied for a green card in 2001. Since then, Bhatia has completed an MBA and was joined in the U.S. by his wife Preeti, who also has an MBA. But he cannot be promoted to a job that would use his new skills, and Preeti can’t get a job, until the government finishes processing his green card. “The Indian and Chinese economies are being fed right now with people who get tired of waiting and go home,” Bhatia said. The green card application system is akin to “indentured servitude,” said Kim Berry, president of the Programmers’ Guild, a group that opposes current work visa laws. “It takes years for the green card sponsorship to happen, and they can’t leave, can’t ask for a raise unless they want to lose their place in line.” Applications for work-related green cards — limited to 140,000 each year, about 9,800 per sending country — are backlogged so deep that many immigrants must plod along for years, uncertain about their future in the United States and unable to change jobs while they wait for permanent residence. And immigration officials resorted to a lottery for H1-B work visas this summer when businesses filed — on just the first day the government was accepting applications — double the number that could be considered the whole year. Three years ago, it took 10 months for businesses to fill the annual quota. American-born tech workers who criticize the visa system argue the annual influx of 65,000 foreign workers like Bhatia takes jobs from Americans and puts a damper on all salaries. But the industry is putting its muscle behind its foreign workers. “They’re the smartest in their field, recognized as essential to the companies’ growth, yet this immigration system subjects them to second-class status,” said Robert Hoffman, a vice president with business software company Oracle Corp. and co-chairman of Compete America, a coalition pushing to increase the number of work visas available. Besides Oracle, its members include such heavyweights as Microsoft Corp. and Intel Corp. This is why even as lawmakers veered away from the issue, the tech industry tried to keep it alive. Workers staged marches. An online community called Immigration Voice recruited immigrants to reach out to legislators by fax, phone and e-mail. Its members met with some 140 members of Congress or their staffs in September alone, and they continue to hold meetings to attract members across the country. They are asking Congress to consider limited reform targeting only legal immigrants — more H1-B visas, more green cards — as a more palatable alternative to a bigger bill that also addresses illegal immigration. Some legislators agree that paring down the issue might increase the chances of success. “There is a higher degree of likelihood that we can make improvements on legal immigration,” said Rep. Zoe Lofgren, a Democrat who represents Silicon Valley. “But everything in immigration is controversial.” What’s clear is that many who are here legally say they’re suffering under the current system — its delays, its limits, the constraints it puts on their lives. More than 1 million foreign nationals were in line for permanent residency in 2006. More than 500,000 came into the U.S. on H1-Bs, and the rest through family connections. Microsoft was the third-largest sponsor of H1-B visas in the last federal fiscal year. But it still didn’t get all the foreign workers it wanted into the country. The company’s government affairs director said this was one motivation for Microsoft to open a new software development center in Canada. “We currently do 85 percent of our development work in the U.S., and we’d like to continue doing that,” said Jack Krumholtz. “But if we can’t hire the developers we need … we’re going to have to look to other options to get the work done.” About 8 percent of Mountain View-based Google Inc.’s employees currently work under H1-B visas. This year, the company posted 70 new foreign hires overseas when they couldn’t get visas. They’ll try again next year. Smaller companies, which may need only one foreign worker, argue they suffer most under the visa cap because they don’t have the flexibility of the giants in the field. Hypres Inc., a company that develops superconducting integrated circuits in Elmsford, N.Y., operates with 35 highly specialized researchers. An extensive job search recently identified one match — in Sweden. The company submitted the H1-B request on the first day possible, but it was among the 150,000 requests, and it wasn’t picked in the lottery. “For us, it was a big hit,” said Oleg Mukhanov, Hypres’ vice president for technology, saying they’d already taken on government contracts counting on the prospective employee’s expertise. “We need to be able to compete for such people on a global stage. Or else we just can’t compete.”
Published in October 29th, 2007
LONDON (Reuters) - EBay division Skype and mobile phone group 3 have launched a mobile handset that allows Skype users to make free Internet calls to each other while on the move. ADVERTISEMENT
The companies said on Monday the new 3 Skypephone could also send free Skype instant messages, and that they hoped to sell "several hundred thousand" units worldwide in the fourth quarter of this year. "We are optimistic that if you look at one or two years, (we will sell) millions rather than hundreds of thousands, but in the fourth quarter (2007) we are looking at several hundred thousand worldwide," Frank Sixt, finance director of 3-owner Hutchison Whampoa, told reporters. The phone is being launched in nine markets including Britain, Australia and Italy, with a roll-out into other countries under consideration. In Britain, the phone will cost 49.99 pounds ($102.6) on a pay-as-you-go basis, and will be free for 3 contract users. It will be on sale in 3's stores on Friday November 2. Sixt said the phone's non-Skype tariffs were the same as on its other phones, with call minutes and texts priced the same way, and the phone will have a special Skype button. "Skype is now truly mobile. This new handset lets you make free mobile Skype calls when you are on the move to other Skype users all over the world," Skype acting CEO Michael van Swaaij said in a statement. He added on a conference call that he expected the launch to boost the group's 246 million-strong registered user base, as the service was now available to people without computers. "We think there will be significant interest from those who aren't on Skype as it is so easy to set up. You don't have to have a laptop," he added. Skype was bought by EBay for up to $4.3 billion in 2005 as the online auction site gambled on the fast-growing popularity of the web-based call service, although it wrote down $1.2 billion from the value at the start of this month.
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