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

About time.

[base3]

Nice to see the robber barons on the run from the administration and the public instead of on the run for once.

Re:About time.

[aicrules]

I do not understand

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.

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

[socsoc]

I don't really see how $24.99 per month is a better deal than $20 over four months

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

[base3]

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.

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

[jellomizer]

Or the fact that the capitalist economy does indeed self regulate.

Re:Bad deal for AT&T

[Carewolf]

Or the fact that the capitalist economy does indeed self regulate.

.. when threatened with government intervention.

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

[Dotren]

I think expanding network neutrality arguments to cell networks is a little over-reaching.

Which is exactly what AT&T and the other wireless providers want you to think. Hell, even the ISPs want you to think that for your cable/DSL.

Admittedly, I don't know the specifics completely nor do I know for sure if it extended to cellular providers, but sometime during the 90s the ISPs were provided money in some form or fashion to build up their infrastructure to support the growing userbase. They took the money but didn't use it the way they were supposed to. I'd be willing to bet most of these companies have the money now but they won't use it to do the upgrading needed.

Why should they? With heavily limited competition, they could give customers horrible service while increasing their rates and most would still use their service because there aren't any viable alternatives. Upgrading infrastructure and capacity does nothing to increase their profits as they've discovered they can simply oversell their existing capacity legally with the magic words "speeds up to". Profits go up with no extra cost to expand which makes their actual customers, the shareholders, happy.

AT&T sets developer guidelines?

[Sockatume]

They're revising the guidelines now AT&T's approved it. Does that mean that every iPhone developer in the world is limited by the guidelines set by one American network?

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.

Wait Just a Minute

[sonicmerlin]

Is there any doubt AT&T is doing this in a feeble attempt to argue to the FCC that net neutrality laws aren`t needed? I have none.

Re:Wait Just a Minute

[gEvil (beta)]

There's absolutely no doubt that this is what AT&T is trying to do. This is par for the course for nearly any industry. As soon as the government starts looking into corporate practices and begins putting together something that will regulate an industry, that industry suddenly perks up, changes their behavior a little bit and says "No, see, we can self-regulate. No need to tell us what to do. The market is working." When in fact, if the market were working, the government wouldn't need to begin investigating those practices in the first place.

Who cares about VoIP

[WebMasterJoe]

I'm waiting for AT&T to allow regular calls on iPhone!

Re:Who cares about VoIP

[L4t3r4lu5]

You can make regular calls! If by regular, you mean "when everyone else is asleep, as long as there is nobody else making a call through your local cell."

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.

Oh sure, for just one..

[Futurepower(R)]

If you have 60 women friends in 60 countries, it saves money.

Re:Oh sure, for just one..

[TooMuchToDo]

You obviously have no idea how women correlate to money =)

Re:Oh sure, for just one..

[milamber3]

If you have 60 women friends you are probably not reading slashdot...

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.

VOIP is cool, but what about tethering?

[Anonymusing]

I'm more interested in tethering -- I mean, officially-supported, I-don't-have-to-violate-my-warranty tethering. It's been promised for awhile.