Angered by T-Mobile Germanys decision to ban Skype use on iPhones, a coalition of VoIP providers called Voice on the Net (VON) has lobbied the EU to ensure right of access.
What’s this with T-Mobile?
T-Mobile Germany has announced that it is blocking access to Skype’s iPhone app on all German iPhones. Not content with that, it has also announced that if you somehow find a way around the ban, it’ll cancel your account. Pretty harsh, but T-Mobile says that allowing users to use the VoIP app would breach their contract and clog up the operators bandwidth. The issue is caused by the fact that German users have to access Skype via T-Mobile, and can’t use WiFi like UK or US users.
So who are these VON chaps?
The VON Coalition is an interest group representing those interested in the success of VoIP. Members include Sykpe, Google, Microsoft and Intel.
VON has called on European leaders to allow more consumers more freedom by letting them access services through any available network. It claims that allowing limits like this only damages customer welfatre.
And apart from anything else, Skype is still the number on free app download in Germany!
From the Skype blog:
“[T-Mobile Germany] pretend that their action has to do with technical concerns: this is baseless. Skype works perfectly well on iPhone, as hundreds of thousands of people globally can already readily attest. But their announcement also demonstrates that some operators do not fear the customer or regulatory consequences of their bad behaviour. It’s worth noting that even if German consumers wanted to change mobile providers, they could not: like Deutsche Telekom, every other German mobile operator contractually forbids consumers from using VoIP applications. (this is the same in France, actually).
This is a real shame: many other operators around the world know very well that people want to use innovative Internet applications, like Skype, and that’s the reason they pay their ISP to access the Internet in the first place.
On top of that, there is no technical justification for this arbitrary blocking of Skype, and it represents a barrier to online business put in place by a private company just because they can, because they control access to the Internet.”
What we think?
Skype put it pretty well in it’s blog statement there – T-Mobile Germany’s excuse is pretty weak sauce. If it’s network can’t handle VoIP calls, then Skype is the least of their worries. First they need to institute a complete nationwide re-haul of it’s infrastructure. I think we all know that’s not the real reason this has happened. Skype has been eating up the international call minutes lately, and that number is only going to grow. As operators are called upon to provide better data plans, they’re aware that people are going to be using those data plans for services like Skype. It’s a double edged sword: improve customer service, and you lose money through services like Skype. Refuse to improve, and you lose money because people jump ship to a better service. It’s a nasty predicament, and I’m glad it’s not me in their shoes. But these kind of strong-arm tactics are not going to solve the problem. It’s just getting everyones backs up. Instead of going head-to-head with Skype, T-Mobile should try and figure out some way they can work hand-in-hand.
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