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T-Mobile Releases New Card, Outlaws VoIP and IM
An anonymous reader writes "T-Mobile has launched a new 3G data card in the UK, and banned users from using it for VoIP or instant messaging applications." From the article: "Lock cast doubt on the sustainable viability of a mobile operator banning VoIP from its network. 'I think that eventually, if there's customer demand for this, it will happen," Lock said. "Other organizations will come along allowing VoIP. Who do you think is going to win?'"
Can someone explain this to me??? I read the whole article and I'm still not sure what super-3G is... is it an unlimited-use wireless broadband service? That's my best guess from the article but I'm still not sure... Can someone clue me in?
I'm assuming T-mobile doesn't want to allow IM/VoIP because that cuts into their mobile phone business. Encrypted traffic, anyone?
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TMobile says that they are doing this for business reasons up front. That's much better than inventing some legalistic bs about how blocking IM is a vital part of network security and war on terror.
I would like to be the first one to say this:
*** Screw you, T-Mobile! ***
I do whatever I want with my hardware. I won't let a company dictate terms to me. Period. I will either find some competitor of yours, or I will hack my way through your restrictions, thumb my nose at you, and help others do the same.
I am not alone in this. Ignore these sentiments at your peril.
Since the telephone cash cow has died, I feel like the telecoms aren't coming around. This is great news! They still get to charge you for the connection, usually at a higher price, while someone else provides the service!
More money and less work doesn't seem like it's enough for T-Mobile or Verizon. They want more. They want the right to prevent competition and continue charging customers for services that are completely free on today's Internet. This is so 1990's. I haven't heard an idea this bad since Beenz.
yeah right i'm lucky if i can pick up someone's wifi signal at starbucks, let alone on the road in the middle of nowhere. there's a reason we use cell phones you know.
This is shared capacity. Also HSDPA is a downlink only. I believe voice calls are usually two way, you'll need HSUPA as well. You have little uplink data capacity. The system would likely fall over with VOIP. Mobile data infrastructure currently untested for VOIP, its unproven that the channel scheduler can cope.
I am interested in the cards that tmobile has to offer for laptops. I want an expresscard for my macbook pro. I have the sidekick and love it and would hate to have a mobile phone provider and a mobile data provider.
They currently have an older pcmcia style card, but I have seen nothing about the next generation of cards. I would have thought enough vendors have the newer, faster standard on their laptops (mostly more professional level laptops) that the datacom people would follow suit.
-I just work here... how am I supposed to know?
The $6.99 plan is quite useful. It gives you unlimited access to all data services on your phone, and lets you tether to your phone to use GPRS. The "catch" is that you can "only check e-mail" while tethered. Of course, with a SOCKS proxy running on port 110 in my office, it's basically unlimited Internet. Very helpful when you're at a coffee shop and want to surf, but don't want to pay $100/hr or whatever hotspots charge these days :)
My other car is first.
Why do people want to use VOIP to emulate a phone, when the phone has a built in phone? And why would they want to use an IM service when the phone has it built in?
Sounds like somebody's prices aren't very competitive.
I however am not an anononymous customer...and while I may not be anybody special to them, my contract just came up and this is story is going to encourage me to take my services elsewhere (not that I needed another reason really...) and if enough people do the same thing, it will send a message.
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The 2600 radio show, Off the Hook, regularly features a guy named Bernie S who calls into the show on his cell phone. They frequently discuss how voice quality of phones has dropped significantly as the cell phone networks went all digital and crammed as many conversations as they could into the smallest amount of bandwidth possible. Thus, like everyone else on a cell phone these days, Bernie's high-tech whiz-bang phone makes him sound like crap to everyone on the other end of the line.
Evidently, his phone is one of these that you can connect to your computer and get high-speed Internet access. One day, he called into the show via Skype and they discovered that when using VoIP through the phone's Internet connection, the voice quality was FAR better than when he just calls with the phone itself. (I imagine it wasn't any cheaper, though.)
Of course, after marveling at the voice quality, they went off into conspiracy theory land, but it makes you wonder what kind of service cell phone providers *could* be providing if they actually had an interest in providing any sort of quality to their customers.