Although eBay, Inc.'s (NASDAQ: EBAY) Skype internet telephone service has has quite a bit of bad press lately, the service is what I would call indispensable to millions of customers who use it every day (myself included). There are reportedly over 250 million registered users of the service, and I regularly see seven to 10 million customers online at any given time. Why, then, isn't the company doing well for eBay?

It is, in all reality. The fact is that eBay overpaid handsomely for the company in the first place, which is now showing up as ROI pressure just a tad over two years after eBay gobbled up the service. So, what can help Skype prove its worth more than just offering Voice-over-IP (VoIP) telephone calling over all those millions of PCs? Try voice calling over mobile handsets.


It makes complete sense for wireless telecom carriers to feel very threatened by Skype, as it should. After all, voice minutes -- and the more lucrative data usage -- is what keeps the bankrolls full for all wireless carriers. If an application was to be used on any carrier's handset that would bypass voice minutes and allow for voice conversations using data methods, this is where the threat lies. Have an unlimited amount of data usage on that Windows Mobile phone? If so, why pay for voice minutes when you can use Skype for free? There lies the conundrum.

It's true what Skype says -- its users aren't always at a computer. More and more, this is true. The "computer" many of us have at all times is the advanced wireless cellphone, though. This fact makes it hard for Skype executives to ignore the mobile market, even with what could be intense opposition from threatened wireless carriers in the near future. If Skype succeeds on the mobile frontier, it has to find a combination for that success that will work with handsets and carriers from almost all global wireless service companies. Talk about a huge challenge.