Facebook, Skype, And The End Of The Phone Company

There are rumors that Skype, the Voice over Internet Protocol service, and social network Facebook may join forces. Each has hundreds of millions of members. In Facebook's case, the number is over 500 million. Skype claims more than 400 million subscribers. AllThingsDigital reports that “Facebook's goal, according to sources: To mesh communications and community more tightly together and add more tools to allow users to do so.” And, where will that leave the phone company, whether that be AT&T T, Verizon VZ, or Sprint-Nextel S? The phone companies have assumed that they can offer consumers a complete set of cellular, landline, and wire-to-the-home services at a relatively modest cost. The wireless divisions of these companies have begun to offer tiered data plans which will eventually cost some of their customers more money than they spend on service today. Read the rest here.