Vodafone could face legal hassles for their VoIP patent based actions
May 1st, 2007 Leave a comment Visited 60 times, 1 so far today
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.
|
TechWhack on Facebook
|
May 1st, 2007 at 10:36 pm
It is not true what is being said here. I bought an N95 from Vodafone and have successfully run both the WiFiMobile VOIP service and the Fring VOIP service without problems.
Is this not a limitation of the Truphone service and them trying to get publicity by shifting the blame onto Vodafone and Orange?
May 2nd, 2007 at 2:12 am
You are right — as I made clear in the article which TechWhack has based its piece on (give us an attribution next time, TechWhack!)
Go to Techworld for the original article
http://www.techworld.com/mobility/news/index.cfm?newsid=8719
Vodafone has disabled the native Voip telephony – Fring and Wifimobile install their own client.
Peter Judge
May 4th, 2007 at 3:51 pm
Bill: which bit is not true? And in what way should it be a limitation to use a piece of functionality built into the handset by its manufacturer? Particularly when there are significant benefits to the customer inherent in doing so?