But now the Cyprus-headquartered startup has taken things to a whole new level with its Viber 3 version: it’s released a desktop app for OS X and Windows, making it a full-blown alternative for Skype’s core user base. At the same time, Viber has also beefed up its Android and iOS apps, while introducing support for eight new languages (reaching a total of 27).

“Viber for desktop lets you do pretty much everything that Viber lets you do on your mobile phone, with minor exceptions such as stickers,” Viber CEO Talmon Marco explained to me. “What puts it apart from Skype is how tightly integrated it is with the mobile experience. Skype went from the desktop to the phone. Viber went from mobile to desktop — the implication for the user is amazing.”

Hello desktop

“Amazing” might be a tad hyperbolic, but Viber’s cross-platform integration is genuinely impressive.

As someone who has a greater variety of smartphones and tablets than most (hey, it’s my job), I can attest to one of Skype’s most annoying quirks – its inability to recognize on one device that I’ve already read the day’s messages on another device. This isn’t an issue with Viber.

“Another annoying thing is my wife always complained that would leave Skype running on my computer at home and every message I exchanged with somebody [while on another computer] would beep,” Marco said. “Viber doesn’t – when you get a message, it beeps at both places. Depending on where you answer the message, the next messages only beep on that device.”

Small things, but useful. A far more major advantage is the ability to quickly and simply transfer calls between devices and network types. So you want to start a call on your home desktop, then pop it over to your Wi-Fi connected smartphone, then maintain the call as you leave the house and move onto a cellular network? It should work.

Ironically, I find this all a bit reminiscent of Telefonica’s Tu Go play, which extends the functionality of that carrier’s phone number-linked mobile services to the desktop. Marco doesn’t see Viber as being in direct competition with the cellular giant’s “over-the-top” app but, as the lines between traditional and new-style messaging functionality continue to blur, I think the similarities between the two are worth calling out.

After all, both essentially extend the same services across both mobile and desktop platforms while using the mobile phone number as the key to the user’s identity. When Tu Go came out, it struck me that this number was one of the carrier’s most underappreciated weapons in the fight against third-party communications services – now that Viber’s also exploiting it on the desktop, though, I’m not so sure.

The desktop Viber app also allows video calls, in the style of Skype and Google+. This isn’t available for the mobile apps just yet, though – it will be, Marco promised – and it also doesn’t allow group videoconferencing at this point.

Mobile revamp

Viber’s announcements today aren’t all about the desktop. For one thing, we now have the full new version for BlackBerry, which – as we reported last month — finally includes VoIP functionality. This makes Viber the first mass-market VoIP provider to offer such a feature on the platform.

However, as we noted when covering the beta, it’s only available for versions 5 and 7 of the platform. According to Marco, this is because Viber has to implement IP-based voice on BlackBerry in a slightly roundabout way (“pretty much recording and playing back”), which makes latency a serious issue on BlackBerry OS 6, but less so on 5 and 7. Even on the supported versions, “users should manually set the APN settings to do 3G – there’s no way around that,” he warned.

Users on iOS will find their updated app now includes video messaging capabilities: previously, you could send photos and locations, but not videos. “Last online” status has also been introduced, bringing Viber in line with WhatsApp on that front – Marco admitted that he himself wasn’t sure how useful this would be, given Viber’s push notifications, but “it’s there.”

Other tweaks on iOS include the ability to search contacts specifically for groups, rather than having to scroll through individual contacts to find them, and the introduction of a new voice engine “that provides better performance on low bandwidth or in poor network conditions.” The aforementioned ability to roam between Wi-Fi and 3G coverage is also a new feature, and the overall app design has evolved.

The Android version gets the same features as the iOS app, but also a hefty redesign. It previously looked very much like the iOS version but is now all Holo — as Marco put it, “the iOS version looks iOS and the Android version looks Android.”

Next trick

Viber now has 200 million users, Marco said. This is the same number WhatsApp announced less than a month ago, but it’s important to note that WhatsApp’s 200 million users are active on the service at least once a month, while Viber is only talking about the number of its registered users. That said, Marco claimed that the majority of those users did use the service last month.

Given the fact that Viber VoIP calls only sometimes use Skype-esque peer-to-peer (P2P) technology, often going through Viber’s servers instead, this means the company has to spend a lot of money on servers – “We’re probably one of the largest users of Amazon Web Services,” Marco said, while conceding that his firm is still generating zero revenue.

So when is Viber going to start monetizing its service, then? This year, apparently. According to Marco, the company will start selling stickers to its users, along with other, as-yet-undefined “value adds.”

How about an enterprise play? After all, the addition of the desktop app makes Viber an increasingly credible unified communications service. “We have nothing to announce at this point in time, but we think that the desktop offering gets us closer to this,” Marco said.

Whatever happens, there’s no question that 2013 will be a very exciting year for the rapidly evolving Viber.

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Skype is rolling out the new service Tuesday in the U.K., with the U.S. and Germany to follow in the coming weeks. Worldwide availability is expected over the next four to five months.

Being based in the U.S., I can’t test Skype over the web just yet, although I’d like to since I use a browser-based Chromebook Pixel as my full time computer. In the meantime then, I’ll have to be satisfied with this Skype demonstration video:

Note that in order to get Skype in Outlook.com you’ll have to install a browser plug-in. That tells me that Microsoft likely isn’t using the WebRTC protocol to enable Skype in the browser even though last year it signaled support for it. Firefox and Chrome already support WebRTC, which natively allows for audio and video calls in browsers without any plug-in required.

It would be nice to see Microsoft eventually open up Skype to browsers without requiring Outlook.com. I doubt it will; at least not for a long while. Kudos to Microsoft from a business perspective, however: it’s a smart play  to make the company’s email service more attractive to the millions that already use Skype around the world..

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Libon appeared for iOS in November last year, giving Orange a clear competitor to so-called over-the-top (OTT) applications such as Skype and WhatsApp. Like T-Mobile USA’s Bobsled and Telefonica’s Tu Me, the app provided free HD calls and messaging to other users of the same platform — regardless of their carrier — as well as voicemail transcription.

Now it’s available on Android as well as iOS. According to Giles Corbett of the Orange Vallée R&D department, the Android version is “completely integrated” into the native OS in a way that isn’t possible with iOS (see also, Facebook Home). “For instance, it integrates all of your incoming and outgoing GSM calls and SMSs in all of the conversations,” he noted, adding that setup, including the redirection of voicemail, could all be controlled from within the app.

On the iOS side, meanwhile, the new version — to be set live on Tuesday — will remain a step ahead of its Android counterpart, with the integration of audio chat (as in, conducting an asynchronous conversation using audio messages) and photo messaging. That said, Corbett said this functionality would be added to the Android version in the coming weeks.

I asked Corbett how Orange’s OTT efforts were keeping pace with developments such as Telefonica’s Tu Go, which gives O2 U.K. contract customers a Wi-Fi-capable app through which they can make and receive calls and texts using their existing number, with charges being integrated with their standard bill.

Corbett responded by pointing out that Libon creates a similar experience for customers of certain Orange operators. For example, customers of Orange’s low-cost Sosh brand in France can use Libon to call landlines and mobile numbers on “advantageous terms”, with call recipients seeing the caller’s standard number and — for calls to certain countries, at least — with charges coming out of their standard allowance.

Meanwhile, Orange Poland is to adopt a similar strategy, and by the end of June Libon will be integrated with core Orange services in 5 countries. For those who just want to use it as an OTT app alongside core services from other carriers, availability stretches to 95 countries. “It’s a way for Orange to reach and explore new customer bases,” Corbett said.

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Skype’s increase of nearly 51 billion minutes in 2012 is more than twice that achieved by all international carriers in the world, combined. This is not a new story. As far back as 2009 Skype became the largest carrier of international voice traffic worldwide.

Now clearly telcos still have plenty of international voice minutes, but with Skype and others chipping away at the growth the future is clear. Phone companies need traffic to grow to offset the falling prices of long-distance minutes, and this isn’t happening. From the report:

International migration, the rapid uptake of mobile phones in developing countries, and steady reductions in international call prices—especially in the form of flat-rate (and even free) calling plans—have contributed to traffic increases. Nevertheless, recent growth rates are well below the 13% average that carriers could count on to offset price declines over much of the past 20 years.

The regulatory regimes that make telco voice calls so high must be adjusted and carriers must seek other avenues for revenue. Both of these things are happening. The disparity in pricing between telcos and Skype’s calling is brought in part by the different ways governments regulate the telco voice network and how it regulates IP. Skype can avoid many of the fees associated with calling overseas because it only has to pay to reach a number at the end point if it’s not a Skype to-Skype call.

It may seem academic, but those regulatory regimes are a big topic of discussion both in the controversial ITU telecoms regulation attempts internationally as well as AT&T’s attempts to dump its TDM network here in the U.S. As the world switches to IP, regulators and telcos are leery of leaving IP unregulated, although many a proponent argues that’s what they should do to encourage the continuations of lower-cost calling options like Skype.

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Calls over Wi-Fi aren’t exactly new, but I like what Truphone is doing here. The new Truphone+ concept, which blends the Wi-Fi routing service with Truphone’s app, not only adds coverage in areas with weak or no cellular service; it does so smartly. From the press release:

“Truphone+ uses “intelligent routing” to automatically choose whether to carry the call over GSM or Wi-Fi by making real time measurement of signal quality. The user needs only to ‘press call’ to make a secure connection over the highest quality link available.

With an elegant user interface designed to streamline the user experience, Truphone+ puts more control in the hands of the user. A call cost indicator displays the precise per-minute cost so the user can decide when and where they want to make a call, thereby eliminating bill shock.”

So the new app will allow the user to control the voice experience as well as automatically choose the better connection type. And that can save some serious cash on roaming or other charges. The service also allows multiple numbers for a single SIM card; handy for separating work and personal calls or for having a local number in different countries.

Truphone+ supports smartphones and tablets running Apple iOS, Google Android and BlackBerry 10 smartphones and tablets.

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That strategy met with only limited success, so last year Skype was able to confidently team up with the mobile billing company Mach on direct operator billing for Skype Credit. And now it’s here, starting in Russia: as of today, Skype users in that country can pay for credit through their normal mobile phone bill or pre-paid account balance.

According to a Mach spokeswoman, the same opportunity will be extended to Skype users in the U.S. and Canada later this month, and other countries will follow. Mach, which provides a billing gateway, has direct agreements with carriers in Canada and Russia. In the U.S. it is partnering up with Payvia, which has similar arrangements there.

“As well as our existing users benefiting from this new payment option, we expect direct operator billing to attract new customers who are looking for more convenient ways to manage their spend,” Skype payments chief Jason Macklin said in a statement.

No carriers are being quoted by name, but “leading mobile operators” are apparently playing ball. Mach lists Orange, Telefonica, T-Mobile, Telus and Verizon Wireless as customers.

It should go without saying that the operators will get a cut of the Skype Credit purchases, although how much they get seems to be a tightly-guarded secret. The credit will cost the same as if it was purchased through more traditional means.

For Skype, it potentially means more reach. For the carriers, it means they get some kind of revenue stream beyond data usage (which is usually flat-rate these days) out of the ‘over-the-top’ technology that’s so disrupted their core business. It may just be that everyone’s a winner here.

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However, with Facebook’s recent addition of voice calling to its Messenger app, the company is poised to demonstrate to the mobile industry the benefits – and power – of scale, first hand. And in what can only be described as the perfect murder, Facebook is now in a position to effectively kill the traditional telephone, starting with the phone number.

How it could work

The implementation of Facebook’s voice features are straightforward yet unique: You make a call by tapping a name, not a number, a username, or any other type of identifier. You’re calling a social connection. That in itself is not shocking, but Facebook can go even further. Its database already contains the phone number of tens of millions of people. (For fun, just type a friend’s phone number in the Facebook search bar, and you’ll likely see their profile pop up instantly.)

This means it could offer streamlined interoperability with existing phone networks in a way that a company like Skype, Viber, Whatsapp — or smaller voice calling startups — can’t so easily manage. Further, all the pages you “like” on Facebook have numbers connected to them, so calling a business is just as simple and at-hand as calling a friend. In the near future then, you will call a business via Facebook on the basis of a friend’s request or a like. No more unwanted calls. No more Yellow Pages. No more looking up a phone number you can’t remember. Just a connection.

What of the gatekeepers?

The real question is how existing gatekeepers of the mobile industry – namely phone carriers and manufacturers – will respond to this apparent threat to their apparent core business. The first, familiar route is to stick to their guns. Put up a blockade, offer low-level crippled integration, or just try to ignore it and hope it just goes away.

Or, they could embrace the disruption with open arms. Carriers need to realize that as the unlimited plan dies, there’s huge opportunity in sending more and more communication over a pay-per-use data line. (They just need to bill their customers in a transparent way.)

This second option would also include supporting Facebook’s interoperability with normal phone numbers. That means you’d be able to call grandma via Facebook whether or not she even has a Facebook account (or even knows what it is) – her old landline will ring just as easily. And when grandma calls you, your Facebook app picks up the call, using number forwarding that’s comparable to Google Voice.

Manufacturers could offer Facebook deeper integration as well. Currently VoIP calls on your iPhone don’t feel like a normal phone call, but they could if Apple were to allow Facebook to control or mimic the iPhone’s Phone app. (While that might sound impossible, don’t forget that Facebook is already integrated in the Contacts app – it is already on the iOS platform in a major way.) And Android is already giving Skype and other VoIP apps ways to generate an incoming call on a phone without sending an often overlooked push notification. Apple can go this route as well.

And now, the future

It’s safe to assume that Facebook is deep in talks already with operators and manufacturers to create a partnership that benefits all of them. To date though, even major VoIP companies like Skype have been unsuccessful in pulling this off. Facebook has a scale that even Skype needed at one point to reach enough people for VoIP calling to become ubiquitous. It won’t stop with this recent addition to the Messenger app. There’s too much for the company to win. (Yes, that includes blocking competitors.)

That Facebook phone you keep hearing about? I believe it’s an app. Sure, it could pull a Google Chrome and try and completely replace a broken platform with its own, but it doesn’t need to – its scale forces partners to listen. Facebook can kill the phone as we know it simply by rebuilding it as an app. It can completely replace Messenger, and it won’t have the voice call option as hidden as it is right now.

It will allow you to communicate through text, voice, and ultimately even video chat. It will use data, lots of it, and carriers might even learn to enjoy billing you for that on a pay-per-use basis. It will work over Wi-Fi too, which will come in handy as 4G LTE networks become more widespread. It will improve the quality of your call in the same way the CD improved the quality of your record collection.

And, by using a huge database of phone numbers, it will even let you call keep in touch with anyone stuck using that dated technology. “Grandma? This is Robert! I’m calling you on Facebook. No, it’s not a phone… .”

Disclosure: One of Karma’s minority investors is currently employed by Facebook, as a designer for products unrelated to this story.

Robert Gaal is co-founder of mobile data startup Karma. Follow him on Twitter @robertgaal. 

Photo courtesy of bluefish/Shutterstock.com.

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Skype was created as a true peer-to-peer network where users connected to each other via a decentralized route. Yes, there were so-called super nodes, but as a whole the platform was relatively secure because of its architecture. With the Microsoft acquisition, Skype’s original architecture (which was never really discussed by the company) was tweaked. But people were still unsure how it worked, only that some of the steps Microsoft had taken, seemed to risk exposing user’s conversations.

Hence the petition. The Electronic Frontier Foundation, the Calyx Institute, Reporters Without Borders, the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights and even individuals sent a request to Microsoft asking for a transparency report similar to what Google and Twitter release twice a year. Google just released their’s actually. From the letter:

We understand that the transition of ownership to Microsoft, and the corresponding shifts in jurisdiction and management, may have made some questions of lawful access, user data collection, and the degree of security of Skype communications temporarily difficult to authoritatively answer. However, we believe that from the time of the original announcement of a merger in October 2011, and on the eve of Microsoft’s integration of Skype into many of its key software and services, the time has come for Microsoft to publicly document Skype’s security and privacy practices.

As consumers put more of their faith in IP communications platforms and governments seek to write new laws governing how those digital conversations are protected or the bits comprising those conversations are gathered, it’s vital the companies shine a light on who is asking for what data and how they behave when that happens. Of course, given that these platforms are controlled by private companies, there is relatively little accountability outside government laws (which are behind the times or interested in grabbing this information) and societal pressure. Let’s see if this societal pressure works.

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Making a call via Facebook Messenger

The Verge noticed the new button first, and Facebook confirmed the service would roll out starting Wednesday. The Messenger app will get a new button that will make calls. It’s voice-only, however; this is not (yet) a service in direct competition with Apple’s own FaceTime app for iPhones and iPads.

Facebook began testing the service in Canada a few weeks ago. Users do not need to update the app; the new feature will show up automatically.

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Users outside of Canada (and those using Android) can receive the Wi-Fi call attempts calls as a push-to-talk messages, and it’s unclear if or when Facebook plans to offer Android users similar Wi-Fi calling functionality. I am not a big Facebook user, but I love VoIP on my handset, and use a variety of apps to communicate via my phone over Wi-Fi. As Wi-Fi networks become more prevalent, these options are easier than ever to use.

Unfortunately, many are likely to view this as yet another closed platform method of communications like Apple’s FaceTime. Luckily no one is demanding that I use Facebook as the sole means to communicate with them. The cool, but also annoying truth, about this service and the myriad other VoIP services out there, is that voice used to be the domain of the telcos and now it’s available to everyone. We’re in the initial flush of figuring out what that means, so we’re still dealing with conversations via IM or text that go something like this:

Me: wait, you have to explain that to me in a call. How did he say it?

Friend: Okay once sec, you want phone, Skype, Gtalk or FaceTime?

Me: Skype

But that will work itself out. What’s important now, is that voice is moving outside of the narrow confines and experiences of the telco network and that’s going to make things much more interesting. Even if Facebook calling doesn’t take off.

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