Skype is finally going to be available over 3G on the iPhone, but it’s going to cost all of us who’ve been waiting.
Skype-to-Skype calls might be free from your computer or enabled VoIP phone, but that’s not going to be the case with the iPhone. At least, not after the end of August. After that, if you want to make a Skype-to-Skype call from your iPhone, there’ll be a monthly fee. As if that’s not a downer for iPhone owners who were looking forward to this Skype feature, AT&T just changed its data plan pricing. Even if there was no monthly Skype-to-Skype 3G fee, AT&T’s new plan makes it less cost effective. (Without doing a detailed calculation, it’s hard to say by how much.)
This double whammy of cost is likely to dissuade Skype-to-Skype 3G calls on the iPhone, so my guess is that Skype is charging the monthly fee because they have to pay off carriers.
Notes: The Next Web.