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Swedish Teleco Firms Looking Into Block VoIP Claiming Losses In Earnings
An anonymous reader writes "Telia, a Swedish telecommunications company, is now looking into possible solutions to block free VoIP services like Skype and Vibr, claiming the losses are beginning to take its toll on the total earnings. Critics are saying the companies have wrongly implemented outdated pricing models, and the act could threaten net transparency and Independence. A new report from regulators of the European phone market shows that more and more telecommunications companies will block their subscribers from using free services. The European Commission is investigating whether it is possible to prohibit the blocking of legal services online."
Why is it that when companies managed to reach a nice cushioned position they complain when the rules of the game change? this does not make sense to me.
You had all this time to profit and INNOVATE. Why not start your own VOIP service? instead, like some retarded dictator you want to block progress.
Innovate or die.
In the Netherlands, the largest telco (KPN) was also going to do this... then parliament rushed through a net neutrality law that forbids deep packet inspection and blocking specific traffic and the telcos backed off quickly. Now they can only charge by amount of data and speed. Maybe the Swedish will get lucky too now.
TeliaSonera is a telco that actually operates both in Finland and in Sweden, and they're planning to block people from using Skype for free on the Finnish side of things, too. Their plan is to allow you to buy Skype talk-time that then allows the service through until the time is up. Do notice that this is in *addition* to what one already has to pay for Skype credits, so this has understandably created quite some negative commentary here and there.
The funny thing is that it's only TeliaSonera contemplating on doing this, all the others are more than fine with the situation as it is, and are even actively promoting unrestricted mobile broadbands.
You seems to think that the telecommunication industry is a free market. It is not. It provides vital infrastructure which means that it's, and should be, heavily subsidized and regulated.
Regardless of the law being accepted or not, the combination of the resistance amongst the public and the politicians agains the telco plans and the proposal of this law had a significant effect: the telco's withdrew their plans. And they are slowly switching to a different pricing model, where data is the main component. And in one case, already the new phone subsidy has changed into a phone lease, for which you pay separately if you want it.
This does mean that the price of data becomes a significant amount of the price of your monthly phone bill. It doesn't magically mean that data is now free and unlimited, and not even that things like price differences within and outside of your data limit will disappear. You will not suddenly pay less in all cases, telephone companies still need to make money. But it does force them into a more fair pricing plan.
Not really angry, more like depressed. The winters are long, cold, and dark.
It is not helped by the fact that Swedes are notoriously uncommitted in their relationships, resulting in one of the highest, if not the highest percentage of 1-person households and single-parent families on the planet. Stockholm is littered with foreigners who married Swedes, moved here, then got dumped a few years later ("Ah well, this is our third argument this year, it's too much trouble to work out, I'm just divorcing you instead"--I shit you not, this actually happened to a friend of mine) and they wind up staying on so they can see their kids. And many of these ex-pats seem to spend most of their time, when not at work or visiting the kids, getting drunk and/or drug-fucked.
Don't get me wrong, I've lived here for nearly 5 years. As a resident and as a worker, I've been treated extremely well, and I'm very grateful for this. But I am really glad I met someone who's also not from here, instead of trying to hook up with a Swedish girl.
And it can be a beautiful country (especially in the summer, when it never really gets dark), and some Swedes are actually quite warm and friendly. But it's also true that about 20% of my neighbours in this building are single, live alone, don't go out much, and seem to have few if any visitors.
It's a bit sad. And if you are at all prone to depression, it can be a real struggle to make it through the winter here. This comes from one who knows all too well.
Il n'y a pas de Planet B.