A View on View :: Skype Scores a Deal

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Skype Scores a Deal

by Mark Evans on Sun 06 Feb 2005 08:06 AM EST | Permanent Link

Skype has reached an interesting deal with Hutchison Global Communications, a part of billionaire Li Ka-shing's empire that operates a high-capacity fiber-to-the-building network in Hong Kong. The agreement will see HGC market and distribute Skype through a co-branded portal called HGC-Skype. The portal will launch next month and offer free and unlimited Skype-to-Skype voice calls worldwide and the pre-paid SkypeOut service.
This deal is eye-catching because I believe it's Skype's first agreement with a fixed network operator. These kind of relationships have been difficult for Skype because Skype is the the carriers' worse nightmare - it offers a service that piggybacks on their networks and offers consumers free or inexpensive long-distance calling. I'm curious about why HGC would get into bed with Skype rather than develop software internally or strike a deal with a Vonage.
HGC is developing a reputation for unique partnerships. Last month, it unveiled a deal with Galaxy Satellite Broadcasting Ltd. that will see the two companies provide Galaxy's programming, including pay-TV, over HGC's network
Hong Kong sure seems like a cool place for high-speed services. Om Malik recently wrote about a 100MB per second service launched by Hong Kong Broadband Network using gear from Cisco. Om says HKBN plans to roll out a 1Gbps service by June to offer voice, video-on-demand, IP-TV and data services.
I lived in Hong Kong from 1992 to 1994, and I can remember a friend being all excited about a service called CompuServe where you could do something called "e-mail". It all seemed kind of strange back then.

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Re: Skype Scores a Deal

by Andrew on Sun 06 Feb 2005 02:56 PM EST | Profile | Permanent Link

I think this represents a FTNS carrier that understands delivering the pipe is going to be a much more compelling business than trying to control what goes over it. Voice is just an application now - The first company that provides ubiquitous 10 MB connections in NA, wins this game.

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\n"; return $new_ad_params; } } /** BEGIN Backwards Compatibility Routines */ if (! function_exists('array_combine')) { function array_combine($keys, $values) { foreach($keys as $key) $out[$key] = array_shift($values); return $out; } } if (!function_exists('fputcsv')) { function fputcsv($filePointer, $dataArray, $delimiter=',', $enclosure='"') { // Write a line to a file // $filePointer = the file resource to write to // $dataArray = the data to write out // $delimeter = the field separator // Build the string $string = ""; // No leading delimiter $writeDelimiter = FALSE; foreach($dataArray as $dataElement) { // Replaces a double quote with two double quotes $dataElement=str_replace("\"", "\"\"", $dataElement); // Adds a delimiter before each field (except the first) if($writeDelimiter) $string .= $delimiter; // Encloses each field with $enclosure and adds it to the string $string .= $enclosure . $dataElement . $enclosure; // Delimiters are used every time except the first. $writeDelimiter = TRUE; } // end foreach($dataArray as $dataElement) // Append new line $string .= "\n"; // Write the string to the file return fwrite($filePointer,$string); } } if (!function_exists('fgetcsv')) { #TODO - Remove or ??? #Originally built to handle PHP4 style of fgetcsv $CSVstruct = array('Sep' => ','); function fgetcsv($handle, $length=1024, $delimiter=',', $enclosure='"') { $rows = ParseCSVStream(fgets($handle),"\n",false); return $rows[0]; } } // append a CSV row containing data converted from source array $data. Actual conversion is done by ExCSVRowWalker() function AppendCSVRow($data) { global $CSVstruct; array_walk($data,'ExCSVRowWalker'.($CSVstruct['OutEOL']=="\n"?'N':'')); $CSVstruct['File'] .= implode($CSVstruct['Sep'],$data).$CSVstruct['OutEOL']; } // returns an array of rows (each row being an array of columns) with parsed data. Returns false when conversion fails. Auto-detects Win/Mac/*nix newline characters, which are converted all to the sequence specified (defaults to $CSVstruct['OutEOL']) for your convenience. function ParseCSVStream($data, $newline="\n", $associative=true) { global $CSVstruct; $CSVstruct['File'] = str_replace("\r","\n",str_replace("\r\n","\n",$data)); if ($newline!="\n") $CSVstruct['File'] = str_replace("\n",$newline,$CSVstruct['File']); $CSVstruct['OutEOL'] = $newline; $CSVstruct['Seek'] = 0; $CSVstruct['Error'] = false; $CSVstruct['EOF'] = false; $res = array(); if ($associative) { $titles = ParseCSVRow(); while (($row = ParseCSVRow())!==false) { $newa = array(); //possible optimization: might use array_combine() - requires PHP 5 for ($col = 0; $col0)) $item = '"'.str_replace('"','""',str_replace($CSVstruct['OutEOL'],"\n",$item)).'"'; } function ExCSVRowWalkerN(&$item) { if (!is_numeric($item)&&(strlen($item)>0)) $item = '"'.str_replace('"','""',$item).'"'; } // read next line from buffer. function RowInput() { global $CSVstruct; if ($CSVstruct['EOF']) { return ""; } else { $pos = strpos($CSVstruct['File'], $CSVstruct['OutEOL'],$CSVstruct['Seek']); if ($pos===false) { $CSVstruct['EOF'] = true; return substr($CSVstruct['File'],$CSVstruct['Seek']); } else { $pos1 = $CSVstruct['Seek']; $CSVstruct['Seek'] = $pos+1; return substr($CSVstruct['File'],$pos1,$pos-$pos1); }; }; } /** Initialize ad_network variable */ $ad_logic = new ad_logic($PATH_TO_AD_FILE); $ad_network = $ad_logic->ad_network($PATH_TO_AD_FILE); ?>