Verizon To Partner With Free Telephone Service, Skype

Verizon is handing its users something they’d never expect from a phone company – free telephone service. No, it’s not just one of those catch-filled ploys to get people to switch over or buy a phone – though it might help – but instead, they’ve partnered with Skype, the notoriously free computer phone service.

Skype, the formerly Swedish-based company that was founded in 2003, is a computer software application that enables users to make phone calls over the Internet. The application is free just as long as users call computer-to-computer – however, if one were to call a cell phone or landline, there would be varying, yet still reasonable, fees. eBay purchased the booming startup in 2005 for $2.6 billion, and has propelled its user-ship to over 520 million worldwide.

Starting in March 2010, Verizon will offer Skype as a perk in nine of their 3G smartphones – including the Blackberry Storm 9530, Storm2 9550, Curve 8330, Curve 8530, 8830 World Edition and Tour 9630, as well as the Motorola Droid, HTC Droid Eris and Motorola Devour, and others down the line.

The partnership will hand Verizon customers “unlimited Skype-to-Skype voice calls to any Skype user; call international phone numbers at Skype Out calling rates; send and receive instant messages to other Skype users; and stay continuously connected and clued into friends’ online presence.”

It may seem strange that a phone company would join forces with the type of service that could spell the end for telephone service as we know it, but the communications industry is inherently fluid and dynamic – and Skype simply represents another force behind change.