According to this report from Forbes, tablets such as the recently released Motorola Xoom were able to access and download Skype without issue and was available with voice calls being carried over the voice network while video calls were able to be carried over EVDO as of last week.
As of yesterday however, all of its tablets in the lineup are blocked from accessing Skype Mobile in the Android Market, with further confirmation that the Xoom’s MDM chipset has its 1x voice channel enabled to theoretically allow for voice calls from the tablet. For its part, Skype has also blocked the Verizon Mobile version of the app from placing or receiving calls from Verizon tablets and has pulled the app for the time being.
A Verizon spokesperson then responded to the initial report earlier today, stating that tablets were never supposed to be able to access Skype Mobile since a version was never specifically developed for tablets and are now officially blocked from doing so, with smartphones and select feature phones being the only devices allowed to access the app. No further explanation was provided on why tablets are now being blocked from accessing Skype Mobile.
The response also did not elaborate on why the Xoom is being shipped with the 1x voice calling channel activated since tablets are usually shipped with data only hardware. This is not unprecedented for Verizon, as it has previously made arbitrary distinctions between hardware and software in order to exercise control over device sales and pricing, such as the Bluetooth profile incident with the Motorola V710.
