Internet calling service

Josh Silverman is on the defensive. As the head of eBay's Skype unit, he's happy to talk about his company's more than 330 million users and six straight quarters of profitability. But the topic he has been asked to address more frequently in his six months at the helm is how eBay could have so grossly overestimated Skype's value when in 2005 it paid more than $2.5 billion for the Internet calling service. "There is this perception gap related to eBay and what people thought eBay would do with Skype," Silverman says.

T-Mobile USA is breaking new ground. On July 2, the U.S. wireless calling division of Germany's Deutsche Telekom is introducing home-phone calling for as low as $10 a month, a fraction of the price charged by traditional phone companies including AT&T and Internet-calling providers such as Vonage. Analysts have said T-Mobile's @Home is really targeted at users of rival wireless calling services.