Skype Broadens Reach With BREW Handset App

Skype is now able on yet more mobile handsets after it teamed up with Verizon Wireless so that its customers can download and run Skype’s voice-over IP (VoIP) mobile application.

The launch of the Skype app for BlackBerry

Following the launch of the Skype app for BlackBerry and Android-running handsets, the two have announced the availability of the Skype app for multimedia 3G phones based on Qualcomm’s BREW (binary runtime environment for wireless) platform. These include the LG enV Touch, the LG Chocolate Touch and the Samsung Reality.

“The Skype mobile app for Verizon Wireless 3G multimedia phones works the same way it does on the carrier’s smartphones, letting you make free calls to friends and family on Skype, [make] great value calls to landlines and mobile phones overseas, and send IMs to people on Skype anywhere in the world,” Skype blogger Peter Parkes shared in an 18 August post.

The app can be downloaded from the Verizon Media Store or from the Media Center/Get It Now on some handsets, or by texting SKYPE to 2255 for a link to the download. Once the app is on board, users can place free Skype-to-Skype calls from their mobile device, computer or even television. (Skype adds an asterisk here, explaining that while the calls are free and don’t count toward one’s Verizon minutes allowance, users will need a data plan to use Skype mobile on a Verizon Wireless phone.)