Interview with Christopher Libertelli

Written by Kyra Joseph Monday, 03 August 2009 16:32

On Thursday July 30th, 2009 in a Law office uptown Manhattan, members of the Digital Expansion Initiative interviewed Christopher Libertell who manages government affairs at SKYPE. According to Christopher Skype is a little piece of software that runs on a peer to peer network that allows each person that downloads the software on their computer or mobile phone, to make free calls to anyone else who is running the software . He describes Skype as a Global company that has almost 500 million users.

Since DEI is exploring the topic of unfair cell phone policies the interview's central focus was to get a better understanding of how SKYPE works, the SKYPE petition, and also about the business of starting and running an alternative to the telecoms. Christopher said that allowing any device and application to operate on any network is important to create the idea of openess. When asked about why he think's cell phone bills are so high, he said that the cell phone companies assume that people are going to pay the bill regardless of the price. He said that the key to change is in the hands of the people. Christopher Libertell is just one of the interviews that contributes to DEI's quest to demistify the world of cell phones and it's policies.