WHY-fi

My wife and I are FINALLY joining the 21st century and upgrading to smart phones. We narrowed the choices down to an iphone 3gs and a BB bold (yeah...we're ATT). At this point we are 90% sure that we will go with a BB given ATTAPPLES attitude toward google voice. We are both GV users and a lack of native GV support is a deal breaker.

One thing that I am concerned about is the lack of a wifi only SIP/SKYPE client for BB. I find this inexcusable since I consider ATTAPPLE to be far more closed and protective than BB and they seem to have a small selection.

We have no land line and a wifi sip/skype client would be a real assist at our home and in bad coverage areas if wifi were available. It would also not violate the ATT TOS. I am actually speculative that there is no real reason for many people to even have WIFI without this (just my opinion, and probably flawed).

Ok, this is more of a rant than a question so I suppose I will ask one. Will there ever be a wifi only sip/skype client for wifi enabled BB phones - and specifically one that does NOT call in over pots to initiate the call?

I hope BB is listening because this raises the IPHONE's standing AND makes the HTC fuze a contender too....

Thanks for suffering through my vent!

eBay made the announcment in May '09, Skype would be available for BlackBerry, shortly.

Since then:

FOX News - SciTech - SciTech - Court Battle May Disconnect Internet Phone System Skype

Skype might have to shut down because of a dispute over the core technology used to make the Internet telephone system work.

EBay, which paid $2.6 (Billion) for the voice-over-the-Web system in 2005, is facing a court battle with the original founders of the company who retained the rights to the technology at the heart of the system.

EBay admitted in a regulatory filing that it might have to close down the company. It said it was trying to develop alternative software but if that did not work, or if eBay lost the right to the original software: "Skype would be severely and adversely affected and the continued operation of Skype's business as currently conducted would likely not be possible."

...

I suspect, this is a reason for the delays in releasing the BlackBerry client.

There is a third party Skype client, iSkoot. It works acceptably well, but it does require BIS support. It will not function over Wifi.

Originally Posted by Reed McLay

I suspect, this is a reason for the delays in releasing the BlackBerry client.

There is a third party Skype client, iSkoot. It works acceptably well, but it does require BIS support. It will not function over Wifi.

Thanks for the reply,

I have spent a good part of my summer vacation researching this and you are right. However, for my purposes this would not really be of use. I need wifi support, not 3g or callback, and I do feel that (for the most part) any skype/sip client that does not support skype to skype over a wifi connection is crippleware - most likely at the covert (and IMHO legally sketchy) bequest of the carrier. My ideal solution is a wifi only sip client (which should support gizmo5) that would allow me to take GV calls over my home wifi. Whereas I agree that ATT has a legal justification and sound business rationale for blocking sip data connections over the cellular data network, I feel that disallowing users to use a private or public wifi connection for sip calls on a hand held computing device that has the obvious capability is an unfair limitation to place on the end consumer. I am sure that I am preaching to the choir here.

Anyhow - I suppose the reason for this reply is a futile hope that someone from BB will read it and think.."YEAH" and maybe get the ball rolling. Thanks for giving me a forum other than an official complaint to the FCC in which to do so :)