The battle lines have been drawn between the VoIP service providers and mobile operators, not surprisingly over MVoIP (Mobile over VoIP) application. This time, it is between T-Mobile and Truphone, which according to Om Malik, the former is blocking later on its network.
It is an open secret that the mobile operators cannot see their revenues being swallowed by the MVoIP players through their cheap VoIP services. However, they should not forget that VoIP calls could be charged as data rates when the customers are outside WiFi areas. It will accrue revenue for the operators.
Speaking to Giga Om about the T-Mobile’s decision, James Tagg, CEO of Turphone explains,
This affects every new entrant into mobile telecommunications because the only company that can facilitate interconnection with T-Mobile is T-Mobile. It amounts to T-Mobile being able to veto a new entrant into the market. This would put telephony back 100 years, to a time when interconnections were not assured.
T-Mobile took the hard step barely three-days after Turphone launched its latest 3.0 client for the smartphone users. Most important feature of the latest version for the UK customer is no doubt free SMS service since 86 percent of UK mobile users are SMS users . Mobile messaging is a money spinning-tool for the operators. They cannot take it lightly the way VoIP players offering free services to the customers.
