10 February 2008

The engineers at Challenger Mobile, a software company in Stockholm,
worked for more than a year to create an Internet telephone program
with the goal of selling digital voice service to homes and businesses
in Scandinavia. Two years later, Challenger's program is sitting on a
shelf.

Christie Sundman, a co-founder of Challenger, said there were not
enough buyers willing to trade their conventional copper phone lines
for so-called Voice-Over-Internet protocol, or VOIP, telephony, a
system that has been technologically feasible but financially
unsuccessful for a decade.

Challenger Mobile ended up selling VOIP service to mobile phone
users, who can save half or more from the fees they usually pay to
European mobile operators.