A little services company in the UK called Truphone which lets people place free wi-fi calls on their phones has just won a very interesting court battle in the UK. Basically the large carriers are trying to protect their pricing margins for voice traffic. The sad fact is that this game is over and that charging for Voice will be a very antiquated business model in 5 years time. You will just buy data access that is it.
This will induce commodity pricing and should scare anybody on the carrier side. Vodafone (verizon in the US) will lose significant value, especially from international calls, roaming will be a scam for some time to come.
The mobile software service providers, skype, consumers and handset makers are all going to win from this. I repeat, this is a big win for consumers. It won't hit stateside for awhile (still waiting for the FCC to start fighting for consumers) and the average (non-geek) in the UK won't really notice anything for 18-24 months, but eventually your phone will get cheaper and a lot cooler.
