VoSKY announces a major global expansion of its VoSKY Exchange VoIP application gateway business through an agreement with Digital China. VoSKY Exchange is the first Skype solution for business to be sold through the Digital China network, reflecting growing market interest in the gateway's ability to add enhanced VoIP-based business applications and Skype trunks to any traditional or IP-based office phone system.

Effective immediately, Digital China's 6,000 VARs have access to the full VoSKY Exchange product line, including seven four-port and eight-port editions that seamlessly connect to any PBX with no modifications to existing PBX equipment, desk phones or user PCs. This will enable resellers to offer low-cost, easily deployable, value-added VoIP solutions to the 8.3 million small and medium businesses in China.

Skype is taking another major step as it continues to merge its internet communications software with mobile phones. Today, the company released a beta version of Skype for your mobile, a mobile “thin“ client that works on about 50 of the most popular Java-enabled mobile phones from Motorola, Nokia, Samsung and Sony Ericsson.

The beta version of Skype for your mobile is available worldwide with a feature set that includes chat, group chat, presence (seeing when your contacts are online), and receiving calls from Skype users, and through SkypeIn.* Additional features, which include the making of Skype-to-Skype and SkypeOut calls from the mobile handsets, are initially supported in seven markets: Brazil (Rio de Janeiro), Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Poland, Sweden, and the United Kingdom.

With its beta version, Skype for your mobile enters a public testing phase that will help Skype gauge the response of technology-savvy users whose feedback will help tweak the offering. This phase is expected to last several months, after which a public version of the application will be made available to millions of mobile phone owners around the world.

Skype announces unlimited* calling to over a third of the world’s population with the launch of its new calling subscriptions. The new subscriptions signal the first time Skype has offered a single, monthly flat rate for international calling to landline numbers in 34 countries.

The new subscriptions have no long-term contract. You can make calls whenever you want – at any time of the day, on any day of the week. From today, you can choose from three types of subscription – from unlimited calls to landlines in the country of your choice through to landlines in 34 destination countries worldwide.

309 million people all over the world use Skype in all sorts of ways – whether it’s a weekly video call with a sister in Paris or sending an instant message to a college friend in Tokyo or calling a business contact overseas.

iSkoot announced an extended partnership with Skype. The new agreement follows iSkoot's successful collaboration with Skype and mobile operator 3 for the global launch of the 3 Skypephone, the first ever mass-market Skype-enabled mobile handset.

Under the agreement, iSkoot will have certain exclusive rights to offer Skype-branded mobile software enabled by the iSkoot solution to mobile network operators in Argentina, Greece, Israel, Norway, South Africa, Switzerland and Turkey. These products will deliver mobile Skype voice functionality based on circuit switch-to-VoIP technology. iSkoot delivers an end-to-end client/server/gateway solution that leverages the ubiquitous circuit switching infrastructure of the traditional voice network and offers either an on-premises or iSkoot-hosted ASP implementation.

Sipcall.com launches Hipsip providing Skype, SIP and EmailCall from any mobile phone. Hipsip, the new mobile communications community from Sipcall, was launched today. Hipsip is a mobile VoIP service that allows calls to Skype and SIP contacts from any mobile phone, and does not require the installation of an application on the mobile phone. The browser-based Skype and SIP calling service is initially available in 7 countries.

Hipsip was created to make cost effective Internet calls available to anyone with a mobile phone, regardless of model or make. Consumers today wish to make free or inexpensive Skype and SIP calls from their mobile phones. Hipsip provides VoIP on mobile, without the need for an advanced 3G or Wifi mobile phone.

AltiGen Communications and VoSKY announce a partnership bringing advanced Skype-based applications and cost savings to AltiGen’s VoIP solutions for call centers. The addition of the VoSKY Exchange VoIP application gateway to AltiGen’s complete line of VoIP Phone Systems will equip call centers with a new remote agent, Web Click2Call, VoIP trunking and global DID functionality utilizing Skype, the world’s largest VoIP network.

VoSKY Exchange is a Skype-certified plug-and-play rackmount appliance that adds enhanced Skype-based VoIP applications as well as Skype trunks to AltiGen’s complete line of VoIP Phone Systems through analog FXS ports, eliminating the need to use PCs or headsets for Skype calls. When deployed as part of an AltiGen call center solution, VoSKY Exchange offers four key enhancements to AltiGen’s robust call routing and management capabilities. These include:

Skype has reached a new milestone of 100,000,000,000 minutes of VoIP phone calls on the Skype network. Since its launch in 2003, the VoIP service has attracted 276 million users and was purchased by Ebay for $4.3 billion in 2005. However, Ebay admitted last year that it had paid too much in purchasing Skype.

eMotive Communications launches RingJam 2.0 for Skype Extras. The company also partnered with Universal Music Group to give RingJam 2.0 users access to UMG's market-leading digital music catalog. This features chart-topping artists including Kanye West, Amy Winehouse, U2, Fergie, Abba and Ella Fitzgerald, among thousands of others.

Also as part of the RingJam 2.0 launch, Skype Extra users will now be able to call friends and announce themselves using video clips provided by Guinness World Records, Fun Little Movies and StupidVideos.com.

Domestic and business Skype users in London are still reeling from the announcement that they are being ditched on the 20th December, but now a free rescue package has been put together by a leading UK based VOIP technology company. Voipfone will be offering to help the anticipated 10,000 Skype users with London 0207 numbers who have been informed that as of 20th December 2007 they are having their numbers disconnected. Those who take up the offer will also discover that once they have switched over they will pay less than they currently do via Skype.

A free-phone rescue helpline has been set up by Voipfone to help Skype customers easily switch over their 0207 numbers; 0800 5200 949.

Challenger Mobile has received a heightened level of interest in the company´s turnkey white-label Mobile VoIP platform from wireless carriers and service providers across the globe since the Hutchison 3/Skypephone joint service announcement on October 29, 2007.

In their joint press release, Hutchison 3 (branded as 3) and Skype announced a partnership in which Skype users in a limited seven-country geography can sign-up for 3G mobile service on 3´s network, after which they can place free Skype calls to other Skype users. To receive free Skype-to-Skype calling, users with existing mobile phone service must either switch their account to 3, or purchase and carry a second, Skype-enabled handset, and sign a contract with Hutchison 3 to handle the billing for all non-Skype calls. If a user is outside of Hutchison 3´s network, roaming charges apply, which can be exorbitantly expensive. The Skypephone is dual-band and will not function in the United States.