Jaunted is reporting that Skype is testing phone booths in Estonia. But it sounds like it’s part of a more involved plan to further disintermediate the traditional telcos who have seen their revenues from coin operated telephones erode at airports, as most of that traffic has moved to cellular/mobile phones.
With Skype Access agreements in place with Boingo, which operates in most of the major airports, or free WiFi, Skype doesn’t need a wire, just the floor space to put the booths. With a soft advertising market and with many airports growing in size, despite a downturn in passenger traffic, Skype’s deep pocket investors see an opportunity to start to take calls away from the wireless operators, the same way those wireless folks took the business away from their “partners” or so called “parents.”
With over 600 million users and as many as 30 million people online at anytime, and a network that can enable calls to the PSTN, the Skype Phone Booths are an ideal way to use up even more Skype Out credit or to make more use of unlimited voice call account. Toss in video and Skype has one up’d the telcos once again.
