Mobile Skype grinds to a halt

Skype has announced it has no timetable for the roll out of Mobile Skype, due to unforeseen technical difficulties and a lack of suitable handsets.

The internet telephony company is developing the service for the Symbian operating system, used by Nokia amongst others, Niklas Zennström, Skype CEO and co-founder told Finnish newspaper Helsingin Sanomat.

However, Zennström added that he hadn't realised the number of technical obstacles which stand in the way, with mobile Skype becoming a more challenging venture than he envisaged.

The service was originally slated for release last year, using handsets made by Nokia and other vendors.

A version of Skype is available for some mobile devices using Microsoft's Windows Mobile operating system but uptake of the service has been slow.

eBay acquired Skype last year for $2.6bn and in April said it had more than 100 million registered users.

At the time of writing, Skype had not responded to calls for comment.