SkypeOut price reductions ahead

One of the criticisms of SkypeOut voiced in some quarters has been that pricing hasn't been all that cheap (I would disagree, as would probably many people living in draconian telecom regimes around the world). This Thursday, all that is set to change, with some dramatically lower pricing to some destinations(http://www.skype.com/company/news/2004/sa_skypeoutratesoctober.html). I assume this reflects Skype's ability to renegotiate some termination agreements based on higher call volumes coming through. Calls to Japan for under two eurocents per minutes looks pretty competitive to me. Calls to French mobiles for 16.4 eurocents also look pretty good, when you consider that BT (remember it is possible to swim from the UK to France) customers who pay GBP1 per month extra receive a special "discounted" rate of 30 pence (that's 43 eurocents) for the same call. This is what makes disruptive technologies so interesting - they expose just how much further prices need to collapse before consumers start getting real value for money.