Skype over BlackBerry IM session from Boston's Fenway Park
Note: Since this post is about BlackBerry as well as Skype, I've decided to replicate this from my VoIP blog.
Skype Journal’s Jim Courtney writes that last night, he accomplished successful Skype IM connections over his BlackBerry.
Jim was in Boston’s Fenway Park, and he was conversing with his buddy (and mine) Alec Saunders. Alec’s in Ottawa.
Jim used IM+ for Skype Software, which costs $25. Of course add SkypeOut calls to that, especially if you are not on Skype’s Unlimited North America or SkypePro plans.
Here’s some of Jim’s experiences:
“By the time we got on the bus to the PayPal Blue Man Group performance, we were making a seat-to-seat call to test out the “Call” feature. Basically it goes through a callback algorithm (à la Jajah) where a callback is made to my mobile phone via a SkypeOut connection and calls the other party via either a Skype or SkypeOut connection.
Over the past two days I have been trialing the software. It does take a few minutes to load your contact list on each connection to a cellular network; and you lose that connection in the Ted Williams tunnel or riding the underground MBTA here in Boston. You are given the opportunity to run the software in background while carrying on your other Blackberry activities. But the bottom line is that it I have used it to facilitate some meeting arrangements here at Skype DevCon as well as for a few other Skype chat conversations. Today I also made a Skype Call successfully to Andy Abramson of VoIPWatch.
For several months now I have been advocating Skype on the Blackberry in the form of a Skype IM client but using a traditional underlying phone service due to the resource limitations of mobile devices when it comes to installing and running a VoIP client as well as the limitations imposed by 2.xG wireless phone protocols. With IM+ for Skype Software, we can get some first hand user experience at how such an implementation works in practice.
As soon as I upgrade my BlackBerry, I am going to try this as well.