Skype getting nearer the big time

Net phone phenomenon Skype is preparing to expand its menu of paid services, hastening its efforts to evolve from a free provider of niche services into a profitable company that could give industry giants a run for their money.

The Luxembourg-based upstart has so far signed up 29 million registered users for its free voice-over-IP (VoIP) software &mdash making it one of the fastest-growing services on the Net. Now it's aiming to milk profits from its swelling ranks of freeloaders with paid services that promise to make its Net-only product significantly more useful to consumers — and potentially more lethal to traditional phone providers.

Last July, Skype launched a paid service called SkypeOut that lets subscribers make calls from the Internet to the traditional phone network. It has signed up 1 million customers so far, the company said last week.

Also last week, Skype quietly unveiled test versions of two new paid products — voice mail and a service dubbed SkypeIn that lets subscribers obtain ordinary telephone numbers. SkypeIn represents a potential watershed, since it will enable Skype subscribers for the first time to receive incoming calls from the hundreds of millions of people who still use traditional phone services.

Finally, Skype is working with equipment makers to develop hardware that will connect conventional phones to its free software and paid services. German giant Siemens, for one, has already released a Skype adapter for cordless phones in Europe. New devices are expected soon in the United States, from companies including Vtech and iMate, that will let people make Skype calls using an ordinary handset, rather than a PC.

Analysts said Skype's efforts to bridge the Internet and the traditional phone network could pose a major headache for traditional phone companies and other VoIP upstarts alike — if it can continue to undercut rivals on price.

"Skype is going from a glorified [IM] client that led VoIP to something that has broader implications, especially when you can do things like get a phone number assigned," said Jupiter Research analyst Michael Gartenberg. "A lot depends on how lean they can keep it, and how low they can keep prices as they expand."

Skype and host of rivals are turning the telecoms industry on its head using Internet technology to offer more calling features for less.

In this topsy-turvy world, Skype represents the competitive extreme, wielding a weapon that few others are willing or able to match. Using peer-to-peer architecture, it claims it can offer its software service for free to tens of millions of people, and still make boatloads of profits by persuading only a fraction of its users to upgrade to paid premium services.

In order to make a big impact, however, Skype needs to get its service off of the Internet and PCs and onto familiar phone equipment via the traditional phone network that most people still use.

Skype's new services bring the company a long way in this direction. Taken together, SkypeIn and SkypeOut will dramatically expand Skype's usefulness and reach, offering users everything they need to talk to people who don't use the service. While that will cost subscribers money, it is considered a key step to making Skype palatable to mainstream users. Skype's core service, while free, requires that both caller and called use Skype's software over a broadband connection.