End of the free ride? Skype sold to private equity

Unfortunately, Skype was likely too valuable a service and too valuable a property to languish under the clear lack of strategy being exhibited by eBay of late.
Private Equity announced a deal to acquire a majority interest in Skype as reported in the Wall Street Journal.
I have been paying for a UK number and SkypeOut from Skype. These services complement our business very well and help to keep the costs low. It will be interesting to see if costs for current services remain as they are and then formerly free services will be billed. Will we see a switch to advertising based revenues or will the services that people have been willing to pay for historically simply be increased in price. Or possibly, all of the above.
The one service that seems a real winner is putting Skype behind standard VoIP telephone systems, such as those from Avaya and Cisco to provide low cost international calling. I haven't seen any uptake numbers on this service, it seems like a sensible direction. However, as a result of other VoIP offerings and Skype, international long distance call is becoming very competitive. Telco managers have several options for international calling that are attractive from a price, reliability, and call quality perspective besides Skype.