Skype this week announced plans to offer royalty-free access to its SILK wideband audio codec.

"SILK, which debuted to positive reviews in the 4.0 version of Skype for Windows released last month, is Skype's default audio codec for Skype-to-Skype calls," writes BetaNews' Angela Gunn. "It scales its bandwidth usage in real time between 6 Kpbs and 40 Kbps, and in 'superwideband' (best) mode samples at 24 KHz. Likewise, bit rate scales from 6-40 Kbps as dictated by connection conditions."

"Giving away the codec could be seen as Skype giving up a competitive advantage, but it plays into a long-term strategy of getting its service on as many devices as possible," writes InformationWeek's Marin Perez. "The company already has an installed base of about 405 million, and the vast majority of users are on desktop computers. Offering the codec for free will encourage device manufacturers to integrate Skype into things like smartphones, mobile phones, and mobile Internet devices."

More here from The Register ... more here from TechCrunch ... more here from Tech Digest ... more here from TMCnet ... more here from FierceVoIP ... more here from Voxilla ... and the announcement is here.