AT&T To Allow VoIP On iPhone

Toe, The writes "On Tuesday, AT&T announced it will allow Apple to enable Voice over Internet Protocol applications, such as Skype, to run on its 3G wireless data network. Apple stated, 'We will be amending our developer agreements to get VoIP apps on the App Store and in customers' hands as soon as possible.' And Skype, while happy over the move, also stated, 'the positive actions of one company are no substitute for a government policy that protects openness and benefits consumers.'"

Comments

But if you can't wait...

[i_want_you_to_throw_]

Just jailbreak your phone and use Voipover3G

It's super easy and it has saved me lots of overage $$$$

Re:But if you can't wait...

[morgan_greywolf]

You might want to check out my current VoIP provider, Vonage. They're offering a plan that includes unlimited calls to over 60 countries when you sign up for a one year contract for $24.99 a month. I believe China is included in the 60 countries, but I can't link it since there seems to be something wrong with their website at the moment. Anyway, seems like it would be a good deal for you.

Bad deal for AT&T

[nweaver]

This is a very VERY bad deal for AT&T: VoIP is less efficient than the dedicated cellphone protocols in bandwidth usage, AND AT&T makes less money on data packets over voice packets.

I think this says just how important the iPhone and iPhone users have become to AT&T that they'd even consider this.

Re:Bad deal for AT&T

[bleh-of-the-huns]

Its called google voice.. and yes it is a voip service, but its initiated via an analogue connection (atleast for iphones using gvoice).

Re:Bad deal for AT&T

[bleh-of-the-huns]

I suspect it has less to do with ATT heading off the FCC, and more to do with the recent announcement by Verizon stating they will be carrying a number of Android based phones, and explicitly stated they would permit voip over their data network (and I believe they mentioned Google Voice and Skype by name in that release).

Re:Bad deal for AT&T

[morgan_greywolf]

Not true. Here's a recent PCWorld story (too lazy to search for the /. story) It's called Google Voice.

Re:Bad deal for AT&T

[Wireless Joe]

For the purposes of this discussion, Google Voice is not VOIP. It uses regular cellular minutes, not your data connection.

Re:Bad deal for AT&T

[Sandbags]

Google voice is not VoIP, it is a VRU.

It handles hunt groups, caller ID data manipulation, DTMF code transforms, voice response, and DTMF tone response. It's a glorified call router (actually, its a higly SIMPLIFIED call router, barely using a fraction of the functions of a true VRU), but by itself it is NOT a VoIP service.

Yes, it CAN route a call to and from an existing VoIP service, like Gizmo, but it does not place calls via SIP itself directly, it only initiates and received calls from other existing SIP extensions and numbers, and can not be substituted in place of Gizmo. It uses your Gizmo number and requires a gizmo client.

The Google Voice App is simply an IP based system for communicating to the VRU to cause it to initiate calls, and to manage voicemail, account settings, and contacts. That's it.

Re:Bad deal for AT&T

[Toothpick]

I've had pretty decent VoIP conversations on as little as 15 kilobits per second symmetric connections (about 2 kilobytes), or about half the available speed of your average dialup modem.

Not surprising. GSM goes down to 6.5kbps!

Re:Bad deal for AT&T

[Sandbags]

for the uninitiated, and to further clarify; if packetized voice is voice over IP, then so are your landline analog calls, for the last 10 years or longer.... By the logic people are using, your landline is VOIP.

Just because the voice traffic is at some point sent across digital trunk lines does not make it an IP protocol. VoIP/SIP includes endpoint to endpoint (or at least endpoint to analog handover) communication to a SIP device that is addressed not by a phone number, but by a dotted quad. A True VOIP call can happen IP to IP without any telco involvement other than the VOIP Provider. Google voice is ENTIRELY dependent on traditional ISP telecommunications systems and traditional call routing (though it's a hybrid that does include SIP sipport for Gizmo), it is NOT VOIP.

Google Voice may handle incoming and outgoing VOIP calls centrally, but that's no differnt than having PRI, T1, and IP connections into the same VRU chassis at the same time. The technology is not the medium through which the call is processed, it is simply a device that ROUTES the call through other call handling systems. You can not ansewr a google phone call unless you have a traditional call system. There is no IP device or software addressible directly by Google's systems, therefor it is not a VOIP system.

Can't wait for even worse quality.

[lessthanjakejohn]

Cell phone voice quality is horrible. Sometimes it is pretty hard to get through a thirty minute phone call and keep the 'excuse me, what?' count under 10. I can't even imagine what trying to do skype over a 3g connection is going to be like.

Re:Can't wait for even worse quality.

[muffen]

While not on a phone, regular skype on a laptop with a 3G dongle is fairly poor. On a good day it will work, but it is not consistent. 3g doesn't seem to be fast enough for it.

Skype on a jailbroken phone over 3g (with VoIPover3g) works just fine, can even run it with backgrounder so don't think the 3g network is the problem in your case.

Some prefunctory rebuttals:

[Wireless Joe]

1. No, this doesn't have anything to do with Google voice, as Google Voice isn't VOIP. 2. No, won't hurt the voice network, as the voice network and the 3G data network are not the same. If anything it will help the 2G voice network by offloading some traffic to the data network, which has more capacity and is receiving the preferred 850mhz spectrum. 3. This was inevitable as AT&T is switching to LTE, which will easily support VOIP; you cellular calls in general will probably be handled by VOIP. It's too early to think of anything else, but these are the most often misunderstood aspects of the announcement.

Google Voice is NOT VOIP

[SuperKendall]

At this point, it has been said so many times that you pretty much have to be a complete idiot not to have grasped that GOOGLE VOICE IS NOT VOIP. It's more like a switchboard, routing calls.

AT&T wants to hold onto the big cash

[Michael G. Kaplan]

More like how important it is to AT&T not to have network neutrality codified into regulation. This move is only to mollify the FCC and get them off their backs so they can still double-dip by charging companies running popular sites for "preferential" (read non-degraded) access to AT&T subscribers.

AT&T is trying to mollify the FCC so that they can maintain multiple other abusive practices that would be eliminated if the same network neutrality standard that is applied to wired connections is applied to the cell phone networks. The wireless providers don't want to become mindless providers of bandwidth.

-They want to be able to charge $0.20 for each text message.

-They want to force you to purchase a phone from them. They will justify their high rates by explaining that they are subsidizing your phone but even after you've paid off your phone after 1-2 years they will still force you to pay the same inflated rate. If you leave the network you can't take your phone with you because the phone YOU paid for is locked to their network.

-They want to be able to force you to purchase a data plan with certain WiFi phones.

-They want to continue to cripple phones that offer highly desired features unless they can charge for them (e.g. gps chips are common in cell phones but users are not allowed access to the information unless you give the wireless provider cash).

The list goes on and on. I hope that the American public and the FCC isn't fooled by this bone that AT&T tossed our way.

Re:AT&T wants to hold onto the big cash

[KitFox]

I really wish the people who complain about this would at least provide the proper perspective. The $0.20 per text cost is the cost without a plan. Verizon, Sprint and T-Mobile (AT&T as well?) all offer unlimited plans nowadays. Nobody with a clue is actually paying $0.20 per SMS.

$20/month for unlimited SMS means that in order to "Break Even" and have them at a discount, a person would need to use 100 SMS per month. Even though there are lots of exceptionally heavy users, the last time I looked up stats for a wireless carrier on SMS usage of Unlimited SMS customers, the average was 62/month. That puts the average unlimited-SMS-for-$20 customer paying $0.32 per SMS.

Your observation that "Nobody with a clue is paying $0.20 per SMS" is wholly correct. There are a lot of clueless folks with unlimited SMS packages though that are paying a whole lot more than that.

The actual point of it though is that it costs a rediculously low amount of money to the wireless carrier to handle an SMS. Fractions of a cent. SMS handling... I forget the precise numbers, but with overhead an SMS is about 182 bytes I think. I'll round it up to 200 bytes just for calculations. If one SMS is 200 bytes, and you only paid a single penny per SMS, that would still be $500 for one megabyte of data transferred, including the header and structure overhead. That is what folks are complaining about.

Re:Wait a minute

[crmarvin42]

They played a role in the writing the EULA to prohibit the use of VoIP, but the decision to pull apps that shouldn't have been approved in the first place based on the EULA was Apples decision. At least that's how I understand the situation. While I think most posters are being a little hypocritical "AT&T is evil for prohiting VoIP and evil for allowing it". I do agree that this is probably an effort to avoid regulation and stay competetive with Verizon.

Re:Seriously, all joking aside:

[ovu]

I would like to counter with:
If you think you can get away with not spending money on your woman, your misconception will be corrected.

Re:About time.

[Lars T.]

I hope your right, but me thinks AT&T will just shape traffic so VOIP doesn't work well al la Comcast torrenting.

The best way to "shape traffic so VOIP doesn't work well" is to not shape traffic. Are you going to blame AT&T for not doing anything?