Vodafone could face legal hassles for their VoIP patent based actions

Mobile service provider Vodafone could find itself in legal mess over their recent activities which are targeted at crippling VoIP functionality on mobile phones.

James Tagg chief executive of Truphone was quoted as saying in the media over this issue: “We believe Vodafone’s stance is not lawful, and we are considering our position.”

He added that the company is failing to meet interconnection obligations, and blocking competing websites. He further claimed that Vodafone was even disabling Internet telephony on handsets.

The problem is intensified as Vodafone is refusing to connect calls to Truphone’s range of mobile numbers. Truphone claims that this is in breach of telecoms regulation.

Vodafone is also said to be blocking other VoIP services including eBay owned Skype. Tagg spoke on this: “European telecoms legislation, gives operators an obligation to interconnect, and to offer unfettered access to services.”

He even gave an example about the recently launched Nokia N95 computing device. Vodafone is offering this phone to their customers but the Internet telephony is locked so it can’t be used.