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T-Mobile UK Blocking Mobile VoIP Start-Up
wjamesau writes "The war between telecoms and VOIP heats up: according to Om Malik, T-Mobile UK is refusing to interconnect with mobile VoIP provider Truphone, a UK start-up with a mobile VoIP client that enables calls cheaper than mobile. 'T-Mobile told Truphone, that as a result of a policy decision, they don't connect to VoIP-based low cost calling services. T-Mobile UK's decision to block Truphone might have come as a response to the new and radically better Truphone 3.0 client that allows you to send Free SMS messages and allows VoIP calls over 3G. According to M:Metrics, nearly 86% of UK mobile users are heavy SMS users, and that means it is a cash cow that carriers like T-Mobile can't afford to be slaughtered by IP-based SMS services.' Can mobile companies successfully crush VOIP competitors like this?"
charging to txt and having 3G simultaneously makes no sense.. it just is a matter of time until everyone tunnels through the net if they dont make txting free or a token amount. W/ any sort of idle/push based email, it makes more sense to tunnel your txt messages via your email client (to other peoples cell phone numbers via the gateways) than to pay the ludicrious per message rates. W/ cingular/att unlimited data is $20 and unlimited txting is $20, so its better to pay $20 once and tunnel. This has the added advantage of logging your txt messages in your imap folder.
T-Mobile ironically are the least restrictive when it comes to use VOIP over the data service. It's "discouraged" but not barred. Vodafone on the other hand bar it - even if they don't have a mechanism in place actually to detect it : http://leavingthedayjob.blogspot.com/2007/06/does- anyone-at-vodafone-understand.html
The network owners are:
T-mobile
Orange
Vodafone
O2
3
The main rebranded networks are:
Virgin is T-Mobile
Tesco is O2
MobileWorld is Vodafone
Fresh is T-Mobile
That isn't to say they aren't cheaper than the main networks.
There's loads of competition all you've got to do is switch, and that's physically pretty easy. The hard bit is working out which network and tariff is cheapest for you. Sites like U-switch are making that easy too. Most people are simply too lazy to get off their arse and bother so the prices can't be too onerous.
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You are incorrect about the origins and purpose of SMS. The ss7 spec has always included space for short messages. It is a well thought out implementation that is now massively used throughout the world by just about every carrier in one way or another.
See http://www.pt.com/tutorials/ss7/index.html for a good breakdown.
The UK mobile phone companies (like many around the world, no doubt) face a dilemma - they offer phone technology that supports VoIP services but some (Vodafone with the Nokia N95) disable to VoIP bits, yet some (BT) offer their own combined 3G/GSM/VoIP services (BT Fusion).
My company has 14 phones on contract with Vodafone and the phones run Windows Mobile 5, so support a VoIP application - I have tried this and it works fine, but the data charging structure makes its use expensive. Vodafone offer us free 3G/GSM calls between our mobile phones and also to 10 designated landline numbers - two of which connect to our Asterisk server so we can dial in free and then use DISA to get a dial tone and dial any landline number we want - in effect giving us national and international calls at the rates charged by our VoIP service provider. Vodafone know we have connected to an Asterisk server and have not passed any comments about it, but being the cynic I could imagine that sometime the terms for their '10 free numbers' could easily be adjusted to exclude numbers that terminate at VoIP service providers.
From my perspective, the much-maligned BT have understood that they are a carrier for comms and no longer a 'telephone service provider' so they have made it possible to support (and charge for) any comms done by their customers, rgardless of protocol and type (voice and data).
Banning the use of SIP/VoIP from mobiles will hopefully fizzle out as customers realise that they can port to 'another provider' who has taken the bold step of offering a contract that keeps the customer happy and makes the company money regardless of what their phones are used for.
AT&ROFLMAO