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Skype is best known for its voice telephony service, so it was only a matter of time before it went wireless. But it’s not the first mobile voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) offering, and it won’t fly with many wireless carriers.

On March 31, Skype announced software for BlackBerries andiPhones, a week after releasing a beta version for Windows Mobile.Earlier this year, Nokia — the world’s largest cell phone vendor in terms of volumes — announced that it would start shipping some handsets with Skype pre-loaded.

But caveats abound. For example, in the case of the iPhone, Skype voice calls can be made only over Wi-Fi, not cellular. That should help reduce the amount of voice revenue that wireless carriers would lose if iPhone customers could make Skype calls over cellular.

Even so, some cellular carriers are blocking Skype. One example is T-Mobile, which has exclusive rights for the iPhone in Germany.

“There are two reasons for this — because the high level of traffic would hinder our network performance, and because if the Skype program didn’t work properly, customers would make us responsible for it,” a T-Mobile spokesperson says.

Other carriers — such as AT&T and the U.K.’s O2 — are allowing their iPhone customers to use Skype. Why don’t they view it as a threat? One reason is because very few carriers sell only a data plan for cell phones, so customers still have to spend at least $30 per month for voice service.

But carriers could take a revenue hit if some customers — particularly those who have a lot of friends and colleagues on Skype — downgrade their voice plans to the cheapest offering because they now can make the majority of their calls for free over Wi-Fi.

Those voice revenue losses wouldn’t necessarily be offset by more data spending if most people who would use mobile Skype already have an unlimited data plan for cellular, Wi-Fi or both. In those cases, mobile Skype probably isn’t going to prompt many data plan upgrades.

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The fate of eBay-owned Skype has been in question for months now. Back in April, it looked as if eBay was going to spin-off the VoIP service as a publicly traded company. Now we’ve learned that Skype will be sold to private investors.

According to the New York Times, eBay will announce a deal tomorrow that will send the popular Internet telephone service to an investment group. It seems as if the group includes the newly formed Andreessen Horowitz venture capital firm, co-founded by Netscape’s founder Marc Andreessen. The deal terms are not yet disclosed.

This deal comes during a very public battle between eBay and the founders of Skype, who are threatening to cut off one of the key peer-to-peer technologies that power Skypeand have expressed interest in rebuying their company. It’s even possible they are also part of the sale – we just don’t know yet.

We’ll bring you more information as it develops.

Update: Others involved in the deal include Index Ventures (London venture capital firm, early Skype investor) and Silver Lake Partners (private equity firm).

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Just 24 hours after divesting itself of StumbleUpon, eBay is making a much bigger but much anticipated move: announcing plans to spin-off Skype as its own, public company. According to eBay, the IPO will “be completed in the first half of 2010.”

The news follows recent rumors that Skype’s founders were attempting to put together an investment group to buy back the company from eBay. That plan appears to have never materialized, as eBay is instead opting to take Skype to the public markets.

On its own, Skype is a quickly growing company, though, that growth has slowed somewhat in recent months as the Internet telephone service has run into the laws of large numbers. In total, there are currently more than 400 million Skype users, and the company generated $551 million in revenue in 2008.

Much like StumbleUpon, Skype didn’t really fit into eBay’s main businesses – auctions and payments (PayPal) – and the company has acknowledged as such for some time. The company’s CEO, John Donahoe, reiterated that again in today’s announcement, saying “it’s clear that Skype has limited synergies with eBay and PayPal. We believe operating Skype as a stand-alone publicly traded company is the best path for maximizing its potential.”

Ultimately, the Skype IPO, when it happens, will be a hugely important event for the Web world, and potentially pave the way for IPOs of other quickly growing companies like Facebook. However, much of how it will be received will depend on issues outside of Skype’s control – like the rebound (or lack thereof) of the global economy and stock market.

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