Liars
by Volker Weber
T-Mobile UK believes VoIP isn't sufficiently consistent or capable of providing calls of a high enough quality calls to be allowed into its mobile phone network, the carrier said to day in response to revelations it has effectively banned the technology from its latest data-oriented airtime package.
However, the company did say it is considering allowing the use of instant messaging on its network "later in the year". For now, though, IM is likewise off-limits to the company's customers.
How hard is it to say "We need to protect our profits from voice calls and SMS" ?
Comments
How hard is it for customers to say "Go to hell, T-Mobile".
In the US we're having a bit of a fight over "Network Neutrality" -- the idea that if you're paying a service provider for the pipe, they can't provide varying levels of access to that pipe based on which content providers will pay.
My belief is that data pipe providers will have to be treated the same way power distribution companies are in some places -- and more every day. The idea is, the wires themselves are a public asset, and may be owned or managed by a company but only by the grace of the public do they have them -- they didn't pay for the right-of-way required, and the tax breaks and other incentives. We did. Thus, if you are a network or power line maintainer, you must sell access to those pipes in an unbiased manner without preference. In some cases, the company who owns the distribution lines cannot sell the power.
Here in Maine, my electricity bill is split (on one paper) between Central Maine Power who is paid a flat rate per Kwh for maintenance of the lines and billing, and one of many power providers on the net. I can choose which power provider to buy my power from -- including spending a few cents more for environmentally friendly providers or buying the cheapest available.
Obviously the force activing my lines is not specifically piped to me from the provider I choose -- but my paying for those units of power causes the system to add that much power to the network from that provider rather than another.
Andrew, T-Mobile (and the other providers) paid billions for UMTS licenses in Germany. Would you count this as an equivalent for paying right-of -way? I think we have to be careful with analogies here.
I guess no UMTS network will provide a better ping than 150 ms.
I have also seen 200-250 ms on average. So that is a simple and very efficient way to ban VOIP. I hope they can't do anything againt instant messaging.
Mabber is nice initiative but with 5 Euro/month without traffic way too expensive. There are and will be many free alternatives on top of standard protocols.
A way out could be voice boxing. Asynchronous Voice Messaging.
Well, I guess Skye is already doing it
There could be a nice email client for cell phones - combining good voice encoding with easy user interface. I would be pay a small one time fee for such an client, but never 5 Euro/month.
pierre
