UK's Truphone Wins Injunction Against T-Mobile 46
An anonymous reader writes "According to CNET.co.uk, the cell-phone VoIP company Truphone has won a temporary court injunction against T-Mobile, who was accused of 'preventing the launch of the Truphone service' and 'abusing its dominant position' by not routing calls to Truphone users. This ruling could have a profound effect on the cell phone industry in the UK, as Truphone CEO James Tagg pointed out in a press release. 'The injunction is good news not only for Truphone but for every company trying to develop Internet-era services and for every consumer wanting freedom of choice and lower prices. We are determined to bring better-value mobile calls, text messages and other innovative services to mobile phone users, and it's right that we should not be prevented from doing so.'" The injunction, which the article calls an "interim judgement," isn't the final word; Truphone and T-Mobile still need to go to trial.
Required to route calls? (Score:1)
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TFA mentions mentions making VoIP calls using your mobile phone.
Were these calls originating from T-Mobile cell phones? Using local WiFi or T-Mobiles internet?
I don't understand the mechanics of what the law suit is trying to settle.
Re:Required to route calls? (Score:4, Informative)
I wonder how this plays out, given the differing models of payment for mobile phone calls in the U.S. versus much of the world, wherefore U.S. is more subscription-based, and charges both the source phone and the destination phone, while (and correct me if I am wrong) many other places prefer to have a more of a per-call charge system, where only the initiating phone is charged.
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I surmise that the way the service works is that you can have an application on your Internet (3G or EDGE) enabled mobile phone, which can make calls to other mobile phones using only the internet connection on your end. Since in Europe, you're not responsible for the cost of incoming phone calls, this would render the calls in question totally free for the people making them.
Not quite. It's more like Skype - free calls/txts when you're both using the Truphone service with VOIP (over 3G or wifi) at both ends. If it goes out to GSM on either side, then the caller pays for it. If you run Truphone over 3G and have a fixed rate bandwidth tariff you'll always be able to use VOIP on your end. And you can receive calls for free wherever you have free wifi (roaming costs within Europe are ~0.5usd/min). T-mobile already banned VOIP from their own users - they offer the cheapest 3G rates
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Ah, yes. The old telephony trick.
1. Advertise extensive, cheap service.
2. Prevent paying users from using service.
3. ???
4. Profit!!!
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Actually, this is not true in all of Europe. In non-Soviet Russia, cell phone company charges YOU! - for both incoming and outgoin
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EU != Europe.
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Nowhere in this conversation is the Union mentioned, only the generic "in Europe". "Since in Europe, you're not responsible for the cost of incoming phone calls" implies that it is true for all of Europe, EU member states or not. The fact that EU areas have EU inspired competition laws is irrelevant - "Since in Europe, you're not responsible" is not true, becaus
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Sorry, but this is really fscked up. The caller should only pay a fixed, small amount to the receiver to place a call. This is how it works in US or Canada. If the receiver makes a *choice* to have a cell or
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Re: EU charges (Score:1)
Since in Europe, you're not responsible for the cost of incoming phone calls, this would render the calls in question totally free for the people making them.
This is not true. It depends entirely on what price plan you are on. It can be expensive to receive calls when you are abroad within the EU (or Europe).
It can be even worse if they have an equipment failure - Orange ripped me off for GBP50 to receive a call for which the line dropped - that I was called back on later - billed as ~30 minutes continuous. I no longer use them! may they self-propagate - bitter fruit!
Re:Required to route calls? (Score:4, Informative)
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Truphone's mainly designed to work on mobile phones with built in Wifi (the Nokia e60/61/70 and N80 phones). I'm guessing that's why T-Mobile don't like it, but it's hard to see how they can justify not terminating calls - after all, they have plenty of other competitors that they'll terminate calls with.
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In the UK, when a Telco gets an allocation of certain types of number range (including Mobile) they get to set the termination rates (within limits). Termination rates are what other Telcos have to pay when they pass calls to that Telco.
T-mobile were refusing to pass calls on the basis that the amount Truphone was charging fo
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Not by law. The regulator (OFCOM) states that they must route all numbers to other providers, and they have a number of things they can do to enforce this eg. heavy fines.
However it may not be malice in this case just sheer incompetence. Unlike TCP/IP the phone network doesn't have any concept of a routing protocol.. new number blocks are propogated literally by the companies emailing each other with lists. The new 055 block (designed
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Truphone is, like my company, a "Other Licensed Operator".
In the UK we are all governed by the terms of licences issued by OFCOM. These licences do contain terms requiring us to route calls between all of us. There are certain, very specific exceptions, none of which I can see applying here.
As I understand it Truphone have also complained through OFCOM - and they are almost certain to win there
Step 1 done (Score:4, Interesting)
It's all free (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:It's all free (Score:4, Informative)
Yes, because when you're using VoIP there are absolutely no fees whatsoever involved in maintaining a working Internet connection on both ends, so of course all telecommunications companies will be ruined.
Oh. Wait. No, that's not how it works...
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Vodafone has a similar structure - £7.50 for data (about 220mb IIRC) w/o VOIP/IM and £22 for 3GB of data (with IM but without VOIP). No equiv. to the 10GB one. The difference to the tmobile plan is you can choose to use VOIP even on the £7.50 one but they'll charge you £2/mb for the privilege - this puts it a bit more expensive than making the call directly in the first place.
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How do they tell that any particular packet is a VOIP packet? If I were to tunnel a VOIP call through ssh or ipsec, would I end up not being charged more (or is a case of if it's not HTTP, it gets charged at a higher rate)?
VoIP (Score:5, Funny)
Sadly, because he was delivering the press release over a cell phone using VoIP it came out as:
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injunction... good...only for truphone... every consumer wanting freedom
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Too bad it's still buggy.... (Score:1)
I love the idea, and maybe when the offi
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A little off topic.. (Score:1)
Now in a future where you have wireless connectivity available to all what is their to stop a company from releasing a small gadget like an iPhone minus
Welcome to "The Convergence" (Score:2)
Welcome to "The Convergence".
And the nightmare scenario for the old telcos, wired and wirel