Stories
Slash Boxes
Comments
Search

News for nerds, stuff that matters

Slashdot Log In

Log In

Create Account  |  Retrieve Password

T-Mobile UK Blocking Mobile VoIP Start-Up

Posted by Zonk on Fri Jun 15, 2007 04:01 PM
from the can't-catch-a-break dept.
Communications Businesses The Internet Software
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?"
+ -
story
This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.

T-Mobile UK Blocking Mobile VoIP Start-Up 50 Comments More /

 Full
 Abbreviated
 Hidden
More
Loading... please wait.
  • 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!)
    • Depends, are they stuck with a monopoly to get service? If so, they dont have much choice.

        • Re:Customers decisions (Score:4, Insightful)

          by Qzukk (229616) on Friday June 15 2007, @04:15PM (#19524847) Journal
          and go with the company that will give the 'proper' service.

          And in a monopoly, that company is......
          • Well actually in the UK there are loads of different companies to choose from, I know of: o2 Orange Vodafone T - Mobile 3 (odd name, I know) Virgin Mobile Various supermarkets offer mobile phone contracts as well, Tesco mobile for example, though I think that is just rebranded Virgin Mobile.

            • Re:Customers decisions (Score:4, Informative)

              by Colin Smith (2679) on Friday June 15 2007, @04:44PM (#19525215)
              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.

               
          • There are 5 network operators and 5 virtual network operators on top of that.

             
        • If you would have taken the time to actually read what i had posted, you would have seen that the disclaimer was a question, if they were forced to deal with a monopoly to gain access to the network.

          So take your 'again' attitude and place it somewhere.

    • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

      by Dusty00 (1106595)
      I'm not familiar with the UK's anti-trust laws but I doubt if this is going to fly. The only reason T-Mobile has any interest in blocking them is to prevent them from gaining a market share. I'm wondering if any of T-Mobile stated their reasons for this 'policy decision' because I'd be impressed if they could fabricate anything that made sense and wasn't anti-competitive.

      • Re: Can mobile companies successfully crush VOIP c (Score:4, Insightful)

        by russ1337 (938915) on Friday June 15 2007, @05:00PM (#19525503)
        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"
    • T-Mobile ironically are the least restrictive when it comes to use VOIP over the data service. It's "discouraged" but not barred. Vodafone on the other hand bar it - even if they don't have a mechanism in place actually to detect it : http://leavingthedayjob.blogspot.com/2007/06/does- anyone-at-vodafone-understand.html [blogspot.com]

  • Can mobile companies successfully crush VOIP competitors like this?
    Yes. Everyone already has a cell, and few people are going to switch if it means getting cut off from everyone else.
    • of course they can do it.

      the REAL question is, can they do it without getting smacked around by the courts?

    • Re:Yup (Score:4, Interesting)

      by Golias (176380) on Friday June 15 2007, @04:19PM (#19524887)
      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.

      • "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."

        "What's that? T-Mobile won't let you sign up without a two year contract? Come to OUR phone service. We don't have them. You can start and stop anytime you like."

        Of course, there's no point in being pessimistic about it. The providers might not choose to collude on this particular point.

  • oh they will (Score:2, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward
    The big giants will keep trying to crush the little guy all the way to the bank, until a judge finally realizes what's happening, and how the consumers are all getting stifled.

    In other words, it'll keep happening until a judge pours a big jug of frosty piss on the big monopolistic company.
    • If I as a company build a network, why shouldn't I be able to control traffic on it? Why should I build a network just to allow others who do not have the capital investment to undercut my business? On my network?
      • Because it's against the interests of our society and so we say you can't, and if you don't want to play nice you can find a new society.

        • Because it's against the interests of our society and so we say you can't...

          Is it? If there is no competitive incentive to build networks, companies will be inclined not to. It makes no sense in a capitalist society to allow competitors to use your capital investments.

          • I'd argue that cell networks are part of the shared infrastructure. There's only so much spectrum to go around. Thus companies, while being able to recoup investment, shouldn't be able to completely block competitors. It's not very feasible for every company that wants to offer cellular service to plaster the nation with their own set of towers.
          • I agree, but I think that digital communication networks should be provided just as postal and roadway communication networks are. Sure it would probably suck, but at least it could help prevent companies from monopolizing the networks, and you could always choose a private network if there were things you wanted that the government infrastructure failed to provide.

        • Then the government better step in an take over, because under those rules nobody is going to want to play. This is precisely the sort of move that has happened before and any company that isn't forced to stick it out just folds up and goes home.

          This is how copper mines in (I believe) South America were just abandoned. The companies that owned them were subjected to enough hostile regulations (or so they thought) that it was a better move finacially to just fold up and take what they had rather than try t
          • You know, there are worse things than being forced, even if due to excessive regulations, to move away from a non-renewable resource-extraction economy. The sooner that South Americans (disclaimer: I'm half-South American and have lived there on and off) are forced to find more viable economic options, the better for them.

            If you want more information about that, just research the the "Dutch disease" for a start.

  • Not in the UK (Score:5, Interesting)

    by denoir (960304) on Friday June 15 2007, @04:14PM (#19524835)
    In an unregulated market system the mobile companies could do exactly that, but given that this is the UK, I doubt it. Even if it by some miracle would pass UK legal scrutiny, it will be shot down at the EU level as breaking a number of anti-trust laws.

    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.

    • Youre almost certainly right that the UK courts wont allow these actions by T-Mobile. But the REAL question here is whether these actions can crush this (probably poorly funded) upstart BEFORE the slow-turning wheels of government and justice get a chance to stop them? Im betting on no-- The government will say "oh gee that was illegal" and slap them with a nominal fine, but by then it wont matter anymore. Or maybe im just a cynic.
    • One reason why mobile services are so expensive in the UK is because the UK government auctioned so few 3G licences off they knew there would be a huge bidding war between the major mobile operators to grab the ones that were on offer. There was. They ended up pissing away £22.5bn [zdnet.co.uk] on licences, all paid to the government.

      And Gordon Brown still manages to not have enough money to play with.

    • as they are today running wild and ripping off their customers.

      I rarely delight in the misery of others, but i'm glad its not just us canadians getting bent over in the mobile market (with the US market getting penetrated to a lesser extent).

      Hopefully this means that more and more people are realizing that the pricing schemes of mobile companies are completely out of whack, even taking into consideration capital costs of network construction (especially here in canada where Bell was able to pump a LOT into mobile R&D while they were still a government backed monop

    • > they've been forced this year to essentially remove the roaming charges for calls between EU states

      Well, not removed, but capped at something like 49 Euro cents/minute outgoing and 24 incoming, last I read.

      Speaking of gangsta mobile operators, SMS charges are an utter racket, there's really no other way to describe that. At 15 cents per 160 byte message we're talking orders of magnitude higher fees than voice. The costs of transmitting a single SMS message are barely calculable, yet they're treated lik
      • When the roaming charges payed on top of your normal charges are more than the network you are roaming on charges thier customers for the complete service something is wrong!

        trouble is the only alternatives for users is to use some kind of intermediatory (either run by them or run by a third party) to route calls to many different numbers and carry arround a SIM card for every country they visit. Worse in some european countries apparently you need to be a local resident to buy a local SIM card legally.

        NONE

  • txting and 3G (Score:5, Informative)

    by bloosqr (33593) on Friday June 15 2007, @04:15PM (#19524845) Homepage
    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.
    • For Text, you're absolutely correct - text message pricing is left over from when it was new and cool and the signalling network didn't have much extra capacity, and with 3G around, charging pager-network prices doesn't make sense for a consumer. (For the carrier, it makes lots of sense, just as charging people $2/month to rent the black wireline phone they've had since the 1970s makes sense for wireline carriers :-) Unfortunately, here in the US most of the cellular companies want to charge that kind of
      • SMS was added to the GSM spec as a way of sending notifications for voicemail. It was never intended to be used as a communications mechanism, and so used a side-band channel that had quite a low total bandwidth, and was also used for other control messages. It made sense to charge a lot for them then, because they used a scarce resource.

        With the advent of GPRS, there was a data channel that could be used instead. In Japan, SMS is effectively dead, and everyone just sends emails from their phones for ex

        • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

          by digitalchinky (650880)
          You are incorrect about the origins and purpose of SMS. The ss7 spec has always included space for short messages. It is a well thought out implementation that is now massively used throughout the world by just about every carrier in one way or another.

          See http://www.pt.com/tutorials/ss7/index.html [pt.com] for a good breakdown.
  • Recently, T-Mobile changed their data settings and basically made it worthless. I'm thinking that this was why. They didn't want VOIP going out over their wireless, and they killed the entire wireless data network to do it. I had only recently signed up for it, so I don't miss it much, but it's got my thinking about another provider if they are going to treat their customers like criminals.

    Of course, maybe unlimited data connection for $5/mo was too cheap. If they can't actually support that, they shoul
    • T-zones was $5/month (web only, ports 80/443). True data service was sold (unlimited) for $30/month. This included unlimited usage of their EDGE network as well as unlimited usage of their wi-fi locations. A steal in my opinion. Unfortunately, most Slashdot users are cheapskates who have no clue as to how much a network actually costs to run.
  • With cell carriers doing stuff like this, I wonder if an analog SMS system would be practical. Data are sonically encoded as they are with a modem. Since cellphone noise levels are generally higher than landline noise levels, I suppose a slower (but more reliable) transmission system would be necessary. Chorded tones à la existing touchtone systems could work, or perhaps series of pulses (à la Morse code). Although an analog SMS system would use cellular minutes, it's far cheaper to make a 5-1
  • Please think of the CEOs! They have to put bread and water on their plates too :~(
  • T-Mobile should be told they'll lose their radio spectrum if they stop providing universal service (i.e. you can call anyone, and receive calls from anyone, regardless of the technology involved), since that's what the "publicly owned airwaves" were sold to them for.

    And then take it away from them if the don't immediately drop all blocking! Nothing less will do.

  • "Can mobile companies successfully crush VOIP competitors like this?"

    shakes magic 8-ball
    Signs point to yes

    What's up with these cheesy-ass questions at the end of summaries? Of course the /. crowd will be up in arms against it!

  • it's a bit of a mess really (Score:3, Informative)

    by Linker3000 (626634) on Saturday June 16 2007, @03:46AM (#19530327)
    The UK mobile phone companies (like many around the world, no doubt) face a dilemma - they offer phone technology that supports VoIP services but some (Vodafone with the Nokia N95) disable to VoIP bits, yet some (BT) offer their own combined 3G/GSM/VoIP services (BT Fusion).

    My company has 14 phones on contract with Vodafone and the phones run Windows Mobile 5, so support a VoIP application - I have tried this and it works fine, but the data charging structure makes its use expensive. Vodafone offer us free 3G/GSM calls between our mobile phones and also to 10 designated landline numbers - two of which connect to our Asterisk server so we can dial in free and then use DISA to get a dial tone and dial any landline number we want - in effect giving us national and international calls at the rates charged by our VoIP service provider. Vodafone know we have connected to an Asterisk server and have not passed any comments about it, but being the cynic I could imagine that sometime the terms for their '10 free numbers' could easily be adjusted to exclude numbers that terminate at VoIP service providers.

    From my perspective, the much-maligned BT have understood that they are a carrier for comms and no longer a 'telephone service provider' so they have made it possible to support (and charge for) any comms done by their customers, rgardless of protocol and type (voice and data).

    Banning the use of SIP/VoIP from mobiles will hopefully fizzle out as customers realise that they can port to 'another provider' who has taken the bold step of offering a contract that keeps the customer happy and makes the company money regardless of what their phones are used for.

    • Of course HUGE and MONOPOLISTIC mobile providers are going to be able to eliminate the younger and smaller competition out of market...

      TMobile doesn't have a monopoly. So you don't like their business practices, but it's their network, and there are alturnatives.

      • In the United States, there are only four major cellular phone providers. There are alternatives, but most of them are off-shoots of the already well established Big Four.

        That's what I meant.

        • In the UK we manage 5 mobile networks. And yet we still have some of the highest mobile termination rates in the world. I can make cheaper calls to the other side of the world than I can to a friend's mobile in the same town as me.
          • Depends on whether you make them from another mobile. Calls from my mobile to another UK phone cost the same amount, whether it is too a mobile or a landline. I ditched the landline a year or so ago, because it wasn't cost-effective, and use VoIP from my computer for international calls.
            • Well the other way of looking at that is to say that your mobile price plan makes local calls as expensive as calls to a mobile ...

    • I was right there with you until

      But big companies have convinced the world that patents are evil; and thus their effectiveness are being destroyed through FUD.

      Big companies love patents. They only dislike certain patents that make it difficult to sell a product or limit their ability to enter/influence/control a market.

      Patents are just tools. The true measure is how the tools are used and/or abused. And these days, patents are useful to big companies plenty. Just look at MS and the whole Linux licensing thing.

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by kebes (861706)
      I agree with half your post. This is the part I agree with:

      This sort of behaviour is precisely what the patent system is meant to stop;

      Indeed that is what the patent system is meant to stop. This, however:

      But big companies have convinced the world that patents are evil; and thus their effectiveness are being destroyed through FUD

      Doesnt' sound right to me. Big companies, currently, like patents. The problem with the patent system is that it is a system. Like all systems, it has rules that can be gamed and

    • If T-Mobile's facilities are being used to compete with them, then there isn't anything that can be done about their refusing to support and supply a competitor. Phone companies have been beaten up by selling their services cheap in bulk only to find a competitor is taking their customers away by reselling service. They do not need to enable, support or supply competitors.

      It's like negotiating a bulk discount with McDonalds only to open a hamburger stand in their parking lot. Sure you got a good price fr
    • BTW they're the cheapest in the UK for data. £7.50 buys you a gig of date to use within the month...The £7.50 deal excludes VOIP and, bizarrely, instant messaging

      Then your £7.50 buys you a gig of data to use only as they see fit!

      Data bits are simply 1's and 0's. They should be in charge of moving that data, and not deciding good data from bad data.

      • Re: (Score:2, Interesting)

        by Threni (635302)
        > Then your £7.50 buys you a gig of data to use only as they see fit!
        > Data bits are simply 1's and 0's. They should be in charge of moving that data, and not deciding good data from bad data.

        They should be allowed to do whatever is morally acceptable. They have a duty to their shareholders or owners to make as much money as possible. As informed consumers we are free to form contracts with whoever offers us a product/service we desire at a price and with conditions we find acceptable. I find

All trademarks and copyrights on this page are owned by their respective owners. Comments are owned by the Poster. The Rest © 1997-2010 Geeknet, Inc.