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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?"
Question: Can mobile companies successfully crush VOIP competitors like this?
Answer: Yes
Question: Can mobile companies successfully crush VOIP competitors like this LEGALLY?
Answer: The courts can decied
- or -
The customers and decide.... (for or against!)
The mobile operators are already in the EU's cross hairs and they've been forced this year to essentially remove the roaming charges for calls between EU states. The commission also indicated that that was just the first step of bringing the mobile operators under control as they are today running wild and ripping off their customers.
Personally, I hope they come down on them like a ton of bricks as they really are ripping of their customers. For instance locally, here in Sweden I pay an acceptable 20/month for limitless 3G data traffic. If I take my phone to Belgium, my gangster of a mobile operator charges 10 per MB. It's quite absurd what they have been getting away with so far.
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.
and go with the company that will give the 'proper' service.
And in a monopoly, that company is......
If I have been able to see further than others, it is because I bought a pair of binoculars.
Only if the other providers play ball.
"What's that, T-Mobile won't let you talk to VOIP users? Come to OUR phone service. We don't cripple our phones. You can talk to anybody."
All it takes is a critical mass of users of these new phones, say 5 percent of poor teenagers who don't want expensive phone plans. Then it switches from "VOIP phones can't call T-Mobile users" to "T-Mobile phones can't work with VOIP users", which would pretty much spell the end of T-Mobile in the UK.
Technology is on the verge of surpassing the cell phone business model. All it will take is a few tiny third-world countries to take a small chunk of WFO money and build a nation-wide free Wi-Fi network, supporting VOIP phones for anybody who can afford one, and soon a lot of slightly bigger countries will see that proof-of-concept and start asking, "why not here?" Things could really snowball from there. In fact, were I a Rich Bastard trying to launch a service like that, I'd probably bankroll some infrastructure myself in a couple highly-visible small nations... say Dubai, South Korea, or the like. Let everybody see just how good we could all have it, and see what that sets in motion.
Information wants to be anthropomorphized.
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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It's one of my pet hates when "as a result of a policy decision X cannot do Y". And I've encountered it where the 'policy' was 'written(?) by the very person telling you.....
A number of times I've asked 'where is this policy written?', or 'does the person/committee that wrote the policy have the ability to make an exception?'....
Saying "as a result of a policy decision" is a cop-out. In this instance they should say "We don't want to lose our market share or go out of business by opening up to competition"