While the Skype app is being downloaded like crazy for iPhones, AT&T are looking into the way they handle VOIP. During a Q&A at the CTIA their thoughts became a clear.
The short version is that AT&T will support VOIP over wireless, although not the network they have now. The nation’s number-two carrier is currently upgrading their network to HSDPA 7.2, which will up to double the speed of their current high-speed network HSDPA 3.6. AT&T Mobility CEO Ralph de la Vega said the company will be able to get to 14.4 and even HSDPA Release 7, which offers maximum speeds of 20 Mbits/sec. “We’ve got an all-out assault to increase the bandwidth on the radio access network as well as on the backhaul.”
With LTE, everything becomes data; there are no circuit-switched voice calls. de la Vega implied that like Verizon Wireless with a next-generation LTE network, AT&T will be more comfortable with VOIP systems like Skype. From that point, “it will be an environment where people just buy the amount of data they need. What rides on the data could be voice, and it could be whatever you want.”
[via GearLog]
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If ATT let people to talk over Skype, they will loose a big chunk of voice revenue. Why would they do that? I think de la Vega is saying ATT will have their own version of Skype which will be charged at the current voice rate.