Following the Mood Messages of a Skype employee in my Skype Conversations window I came across this last Friday: “brand new version of Skype To Go available. Dead simple to use, nothing to download, call directly from your contact list !” Curious, I went to my Skype To Go subscription where I found all six of my Skype To Go contacts had suddenly, and spontaneously, sprouted individual 647 numbers (647 being the overlay area code for Toronto’s legacy 416 area code).

Previously I had a single Toronto-based Skype To Go number which I would call to access one of my six contacts by selecting a number between “1” and “6” when I called the number. This process, using a Bluetooth connection between my BlackBerry and car audio system,  meant my “hands free” calling to this number in my car required that I actually use the keypad on my car’s “phone” panel. The new Skype To Go resolves this issue and more.

Here’s what’s new:

• Up to nine Skype To Go contacts can be designated; each with an individual Skype To Go number
• Up to five of your mobile or landline phones can be registered as valid phones to use these numbers
• When calling from a registered phone to one of the nine contacts, there is no need to wait for any voice prompts; the connection is now immediately made.
• Validated with a PIN and entering one of the registered phones’ numbers, one can call these numbers from any other phone.
• You register also the Country and Area Code you are calling from. When you move to another Country you can change the registered Country and get new local phones numbers for each of your Skype To Go contacts. But when you return to your “home” country you will get back your original Skype To Go numbers.
• The listing also shows what your charges are to these numbers below the destination number.
• You can select which of the registered numbers you want to display as your callerID when making these calls.
• What’s not changed? Your old Skype To Go number which you can still use for calling numbers not included in your Skype To Go contact list.

Skype To Go numbers can be obtained in 23 countries (note that Canada was added earlier this year):

So what’s the cost?

• If the number called is on one of your Skype subscription plans, there is no charge to landlines and mobiles in the eight countries with totally unlimited calling; for the 33 countries with unlimited calling to landlines only you pay the going Skype calling rate for calls to mobile phones (for instance, $0.317 per minute to mobile numbers in Spain). Note that Skype’s fair usage policy applies.
  
• If not on a subscription you pay, via Skype credits, the normal SkypeOut charges plus a connection fee.

Bottom line: I can now make totally hands free calls to these nine “most frequent” contacts using Skype To Go from my car via my BlackBerry or iPhone simply by pressing the “Enter” button on my steering wheel and saying “Call [Name] Other”. To simplify this process I have recorded these Skype To Go numbers under “Other” in my smartphone and Outlook address books. Back to total compliance with Ontario law regarding use of mobile phones while driving.

The bonus: I added my wife’s BlackBerry as a registered phone and she gets to call three relatives in another Canadian city at no cost when calling from Toronto’s rather large local calling area, encompassing four area codes. (With 90% of  its population spread out across a belt 100 miles wide and 4,000 miles long, Canada still has long distance charges, although they are gradually evaporating into carrier calling plans at low or no cost.)

Since its launch about two years ago, I have blogged several times about iotum’s CalliFlower Conference Calling service. More significantly I have used it for several conference calls of up to 25 people, including a couple that ran for over two hours. While permitting up to several hundred participants into a conference call, Calliflower’s primary unique feature is the “portal” created for each call along with the long term archiving of a call and its associated “portal”. Other features include:

• access via the PSTN in over 100 cities in 30 countries (using phone numbers supplied by Voxbone)
• ability to display (and share) documents supporting the conference call’s agenda
• a common chat window, often used to share URL’s, provide information complementary to the primary discussion or even ensure all participants have correct spellings of key words used in the discussion
• a complete service that supports the entire conference call process from initial invitations to the final archiving of the call
• an iPhone client for setting up and accessing a CalliFlower session
• sessions can be either private requiring invitations or public; the archived content of public sessions is searchable

Today iotum has announced the addition of Skype as a way to access Calliflower conference calls; from the press release:

Previously, participants could only dial into Calliflower conferences through PSTN access numbers, potentially incurring local charges.  In regions or countries where no such access numbers are available, customers would incur long-distance and even international charges, or use up Skype-out minutes calling access numbers overseas.  Now callers can access Calliflower through a Skype ID – CalliflowerSkype – or via a web button in the Calliflower UI, overcoming this disadvantage.

“We’ve had many requests from potential Calliflower customers who had no local access numbers, especially from  parts of Africa, India, China and the Middle East,” said Alec Saunders, iotum CEO. “Now, as long as they have Skype, that doesn’t matter anymore.”

In addition, users gain from the better audio quality they will enjoy through direct Skype access¹, as well as from all the visual information, documents and presentations that are shared through Calliflower’s interactive dashboard. These tools go a long way toward improving understanding on international conference calls.

Available on PC, Mac and iPhone, Calliflower makes organizing and participating in multi-party calls simple and engaging.  It allows participants to see the status of other callers and raise hands to request the floor, while also providing interactive chat, document sharing, intuitive conference controls, call recording, invitations and reminders, integration with calendars, and more.

On your initial access to a CalliFlower call you will need to add CalliFlowerSkype as a Skype Contact. But then recall that Skype allows you the option of using your Skype Online number or a designated mobile phone number as your caller ID for SkypeOut calls. When accessing a CalliFlower conference call on Skype, CalliFlower will look at your callerID in place of entering a PIN number to provide authentication for your access. iotum is looking at adding the ability to use your SkypeID as a participant identifier.

As with access in over 30 countries via the PSTN, Skype Access in CalliFlower is included in the monthly Premium service with a monthly charge of $50 for the first two moderators or organizers within a company and $25 per additional organizer.

Bottom line: Skype Access opens up lower cost access for participation in a CalliFlower conference call in every country where Skype is available. Incorporation of Skype access also fits into Skype’s “Skype Everywhere” goal. In this case calls can be accessed not only via Skype on a PC but also from any Skype offering on a mobile platform. This is enhanced for iPhone users where they will also find an iPhone client for setting up and managing a CalliFlower conference call.

¹I asked iotum CEO Alec Saunders to clarify the statement re improved auido quality; his response:

1. Better quality hardware. Skype users tend to be using better quality equipment than POTS callers.  In particular most PC headsets have a better microphone than the cheap microphones in telephone handsets.
2. 2. Fewer transcoding losses. Internally, Calliflower is VoIP.  When a user calls Calliflower from the PSTN, those calls transit a media gateway where the media is transcoded and presented as G.711.  Prior to the direct connection we’ve initiated, media coming from Skype would be transcoded at least twice – from Skype to the PSTN, and then PSTN to G.711.  The result was a noticeable degradation in quality.  Now Skype presents the media to us directly as G.711.

Other posts:

Check out Tom Keating’s post over at his VoIP and Gadgets blog on TMCNet where he interviews iotum CEO Alec Saunders about how CalliFlower implemented its Skype access via Skype for SIP, involving Skype for SIP’s addition of IP address authentication.

Full disclosure: the author has followed the evolution of CalliFlower over its three year development process, and was a frequent participant in iotum’s SquawkBox calls where not only did we discuss technology news of the day but also contributed ideas and suggestions for improvements and enhancements to the CalliFlower service. You can access the archive of the SquawkBox call discussing the FREETALK Everyman headset at the time of its launch here.

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Skype’s announcement today of agreements to have television sets become end points for Skype video calls really raises a series of both user interface issues as well as social issues:

• Do I want to be interrupted while watching programming such as a sporting event or Oprah?
• Where is it more convenient to talk: via a TV audio channel open to the room or a traditional handset with its inherent conversation privacy and reduced potential to interrupt a roomful of family and/or friends?
• Where do we want convergence? How much do we want to have application-specific hardware?
• Do we want scenarios where all those in the viewing room are exposed to the call?
• What clothes shall I wear while watching TV but enabled to be seen on a video call?
• If Skype is introduced into TV sets, how far can the inherent intelligence and Internet connectivity be deployed in a way that encourages user adoption of additional features and services? (SlingBox in the TV?)
• What Skype account(s) does one want to come via the TV? An separate account? A personal-use account? A business-use account? or combinations of these accounts. (For the Philips VoIP phone on our Rogers Home Phone service, we use a separate Skype account from my normal Skype “business-use” account.)

Why do I raise these questions? Consider three related user experiences I have had:

• When the Turin Winter Olympics opened in February 2006, I happened to be on a Skype call to an acquaintance, Peter, in Sweden while watching the CBC broadcast of the opening ceremony in my office via my newly acquired SlingBox. He was also watching the same opening ceremony on Swedish television. Our conversation was intertwined between the original purpose of the call (to address some technical issues) and comments on the opening ceremony. It was an interesting experience but note that we were watching and discussing the broadcast while being able to watch it.
• Recently Rogers quietly added a TV Call Display service that brought a feature of our Home Phone service to our TV set. Namely when someone calls us the caller ID information appears along the bottom of the TV screen along with options to Send to Voice Mail, Snooze (disable the call notification for up to 2 hours) or change the TV Call Display settings. Bottom line: it’s a minimally obtrusive service that actually provides call information prior to the phone(s) ringing and let’s you have options for dealing with the call without leaving your viewing chair.
• It’s real handy to have a PVR service that continues to record a program while viewing other programs; the other service that comes handy when there are conflicting sports events is Picture-in-Picture.

Skype’s TV Video calling currently has to be in an early adopter (or launch) phase. It simply replaces the currently viewed program with the video call taking over the screen and effectively becomes another Skype client. (More Skype Everywhere?) Obviously the TV set has to be both “intelligent” and Internet-enabled; this explains both why the HDMI 1.4 cable specification includes the ability to incorporate an Ethernet connection and why new higher performance  intelligence has to be introduced into TV sets (or cable set-top boxes).

But, partially based on my experiences described above, for a fully featured user experience we need to see:

• On-screen notification of a call while watching a broadcast program along with options to take the call or send it to a voice mail (or video mail) service.
• Ongoing recording of the currently viewed TV program in background on the PVR while on the call.
• Picture-in-picture integration to allow a viewer to monitor a program while on a call (or switch between the program and calling party as the primary display content).
• Multi-party calling (is this a potential revenue generating service for Skype?)
• Forwarding/transferring of the voice channel of the call to another Skype-enabled device such as the RTX 3088 Dualphone or mobile smartphone, or forward both the voice and video channels of the call to a Skype client on a PC.
• Chat or text messaging capability.

Given the size of the somewhat saturated HD television set market it needs new features to go beyond simply HD capability; using the TV as a Skype end point becomes one option to enhance the TV feature set. From the user perspective, on the other hand, it becomes one of many choices for handling (Skype) conversations. It certainly adds to the “Skype Everywhere” theme but how far do we want “everywhere” to go?

Bottom line: going forward we are going to see a range of attempts at convergence of our communications. But we are left with many questions:

• How much intelligence do we need within our “end point” devices? (I just acquired a Blu-Ray player that has an active Ethernet connection for firmware updates and additional content information delivery).
• Should the Skype intelligence be in TV sets or does it make more sense (and for broader distribution of Skype) to have the Skype intelligence in a set-top box, such as our Scientific Atlanta Explorer box?
• What additional services would intelligence in the TV or cable set-top box could be delivered by the cable service providers?
• How intense will the competition become between TV set manufacturers and cable set-top box manufacturers to control the intelligence behind these services? What can the set manufacturers and the cable companies see as business models for these competing offerings?
• Can this video calling intelligence be brought to mobile smartphones? Do we need LTE or 4G networks to make this happen?

At a minimum, the introduction of Skype’s TV client gives us talking points for the upcoming CES 2010 later this week.

Additional links and information:

Share Skype Blog: Get Skype on your TV

LG Electronics to Unveil Broadband HDTVs With Embedded Skype Capability

Skype and Panasonic Announce Collaboration to Add Skype Software to Viera® HDTVs

Brad Stone, New York Times: A Venture Integrating Skype Into the Family Room

And, as for the Hockey Picture on the captured TV screen: tonight Canada will be defeating the U.S. for World Junior Hockey supremacy once again…. fortunately I will be able to watch it live on my flight to Las Vegas. Something to do in this era of minimalist carry-on luggage.

When Martin Geddes started out his eComm Europe launch keynote talking about real customer pains and how they needed to be addressed from a user interaction viewpoint, I had hope that maybe we would be hearing more about real business cases in the emerging communications world. What we have learned from the subsequent presentations include:

• Carriers and operators are gradually figuring out they need to be in the “Internet pipes” business (as a channel simply for transporting IP packets) OR the service provider business (acting as a retailer providing specific services as basic as email or as complex as multi-currency transaction processing engines). Those that don’t get it will fade away.
• We’re a long way from having LTE accepted, let alone available, as an ultra high speed wireless protocol. The business case, from both a technology and financial perspective, has yet to be made.
• Value add is through “wow” user experiences; value your customer’s time when handling voice communications and the issue of cost goes away.
  • Calliflower detects callerID to eliminate need for PIN numbers
  • Time Warner will auto-confirm that a service person is coming.
  • Voxygen’s “revolutionary callerID” demonstrates a “rich callerID” experience for both the customer and the merchant in completing an online sales transaction.
• The most promising and innovative application: Layar – an “augmented reality” web browser that sets new levels of performance for location-based services; they won the eComm Application award. Available at the Android Market and the iPhone App Store. Watch for Layar to spawn a network of location-based services application developer partners such as Winvolve.
• Small but important facts that came out:
• GIPS Video engine is using the H.264 SVC codec to allow the viewing experience at the end points of a video conference call to reflect the quality of connection at the end points.
• Skype’s SILK codec is the first voice codec that has not evolved from a TDM codec which has implications from an engineering and development viewpoint (noted by Tim Panton of phonefromhere.com in his presentation on deploying the SILK codec in a yet-to-be-announced project).
• Skype’s Sten Tamkivi pointing out that, whereas most carriers will have, on average, 2,000 calling corridors for completing calls internationally, Skype has over 40,000 calling corridors. Very significant as Skype for Business launches its new services. (A calling corridor determines that actual routing of an inter-carrier call from the caller end-point to the terminating end point.)
• Perhaps the most interesting prototype demonstration was Tim Panton’s Google Wave – Skype – Asterisk prototype demonstration. Phil Wolff at Skype Journal calls it a “Cool  Demo”.

But, I’m with Alec Saunders on a key point: we heard lots about the technology, the carrier and financing issues, “neat” applications. But we heard little, if any, about business implementation cases. We need to hear more about:

• • Who is using these offerings?
  • Where have the new paradigms for telecom allowed small businesses to take advantage of what were previously enterprise level services, such as call centers and voice as a service?
  • Where are the business case studies of implementations?

Alec sums it up best in his post, eComm: Time to Change the Station,:

It is, however, time to stop talking about the death of the incumbent. Let’s instead change the conversation – acknowledge that the carrier network is a platform, and that the carrier has a need for an application community, and begin the dialog between network partners and developers about the ability for those operators to help us get to market.

While we’re at it, let’s also change the channel, dial away from the conversation about “mash-ups”, and focus instead on user needs, the user experience of communications, and the economics associated with that user experience.  By focusing on the business value of the services being developed instead of the technology platform, we can all become better able to reach the customer with game changing new communications services.

Make sense?  It’s an idea who’s time has come.

Full disclosure: Why do I have this viewpoint? I have recently completed managing a project that takes advantage of cloud computing and software-as-a-service to develop a website for a vacation home condominium project where the primary hotel renting our units went under and closed due to Mr. Madoff’s impact on the owner’s finances. As a result we, as the condominium owners, had to implement our own reservation management and booking website with services that would have cost over $500,000 fifteen years ago but had an initial cost this  summer under $20,000. We replaced a telephone switchboard, an onsite reservation system and guest registration system with much more flexibility in the entire guest experience from initial reservation to final check-out. We incorporated WordPress, OnState (with Skype as a calling option), InnRoad, YouTube, Google Maps and Twitter.The entire story will be in another post but you can check out the website here.

There must be many similar stories building up these days; eComm needs to find and tell these types of stories. (And, Lee, you have your first submission for eComm America 2010.)

However, to end on a positive note, eComm Europe 2009 was still the learning experience I was looking for. How important was eComm? My own home carrier, Rogers Communications, had two attendees – one of the few carrier companies at this most important industry-altering event.

Acknowledgment and disclosure: The author’s attendance at eComm Europe 2009 was supported by In Store Solutions, vendor of the FreeTalk Everyman Headset for Skype. In Store Solutions provided an Everyman headset to all eComm Europe 2009 attendees. The author provides business development services to In Store Solutions due to his previous experience with distribution channels and partner programs.

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For some time now, Skype users in Europe and other countries could send their SkypeIn number as a CallerID (Caller Line Identification – CLI) for SkypeOut calls. Yet if a North American made a SkypeOut call, usually the recipient of the call would see a non-identifying “0000123456″ or something similar.

This week Skype has modified this service such that Skype users can select either their SkypeIn (Online) number or mobile phone number as their CLI or CallerID to be sent with their SkypeOut calls. And now it applies to North American Skype users. Yesterday I signed up for the service (go to www.skype.com and select Account, login and select “Caller Identification”). You will then get a window with the following:

In this case the dropdown is showing two options: the mobile number associated with my Skype profile and my U.S.-based SkypeIn (online) number. Select which you want as your CallerID number when making SkypeOut calls and click on the “Save” button. You will then get a message notifying you that you should receive a “verification” SMS message within 24 hours.

While, at the time of writing I have yet to receive the referenced SMS message (Confirmation SMS received after 22 hours), 18 hours later I have made a test call to observe that the callerID is being passed through; in this case, I saw my selected mobile number. As the CLI service depends on SMS messaging for CallerID number verification, any number entered via “Enter another number as your CallerID” needs to be a mobile number (with the “+1″ country code). Also note that, if your selected mobile or SkypeIn number is in the recipient’s phone address book, the caller’s name will also appear.

Update: Dan York at Disruptive Telephony has made a small test application: call +1 (407) 965-2790 via SkypeOut and the Voxeo voice will confirm your CallerID in use. Also have made a call to a third party who is not even aware of Skype or SkypeOut and he saw my correct CallerID.

The option to “Automatically display a number that is local to the call destination” is available for those Skype users who have multiple SkypeIn numbers (say, a U.S. number and a U.K. number). The service will detect the destination of the call and determine which of the two SkypeIn (online) numbers it should display. According to another third party source, this will also work such that called parties within Canada will see my (Canadian) mobile CalleirID while called parties in other countries will see my (U.S.) SkypeIn number.

For North Americans, seeing the “+1″ country code would identify the call as coming from a Skype user as normally this is not displayed when receiving PSTN calls.

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