While making our way through the throng of booths, bloggers, and boisterous crowds at CTIA, we were able to snag a few minutes with the new Skype mobile application running on both a BlackBerry Storm2 and a Motorola DROID. The Skype application will allow Skype users to make and receive unlimited domestic and international Skype-to-Skype voice calls, send and receive instant messages to other Skype users, manage the Skype contact list from the mobile device, and call international numbers at Skype’s international calling rates, which, coincidentally, are less expensive than Verizon Wireless’ rates.
We discovered a few interesting tidbits about the mobile application from our time with it on the two demo handsets. One big feature missing in the mobile application is the ability to call domestic landlines. If you attempt to call a U.S.-based landline, you will be prompted to use your Verizon Wireless calling plan and its minutes to complete that call. To improve the quality of phone calls, the Skype service is also not a pure end-to-end VoIP solution as the calls are routed over Verizon’s voice network to Skype’s servers while the IMs and presence/status updates are carried over the data network. Dying to try it out? Starting March 25th, BlackBerry owners can head to skype.com/mobile to grab their copy of Skype while Android owners can locate the free application in the Android Market. Hit the jump for a few screen grabs of Skype in action.
