Vyke fights back against mobile incumbents' agreement to lock down alternative VoIP providers

Vyke plans to release an upgrade to its mobile VoIP software that will "restore full mobile VoIP functionality on mobile handsets that have been intentionally crippled by mobile operators", says their latest press release. The forthcoming version of Vyke Mobile IP will provide users with a "fully functional, stand alone mobile VoIP application that circumvents the mobile operator orchestrated removal of built-in handset VoIP capabilities".

Vyke wants to prevent problems caused by the new guidelines from the Open Mobile Terminal Alliance (OMTP), an organisation of big mobile operators like Orange, Vodafone, T-Mobile and 3. The guidance recommends to disable mobile VoIP features from new handsets sold under contract subsidy.

Tommy Jensen, Executive Chairman for Vyke Communications plc speaks in strong words:

The user should be able to do whatever they want with the phone as they have already signed a contract that guarantees the mobile operator sufficient revenues to justify them giving him or her the device in the first place.

There is an elephant in the room that no mobile operator or regulatory agency seems to be acknowledging - network neutrality. When Vodafone decides, as of June 1st, to prohibit their users from using third party applications for services like instant messaging, VoIP or text messaging, they are effectively censoring their user’s ability to choose what services they want to access from a network that they are paying for. Imagine if a home DSL provider blocked access to Google because they wanted to force you to use their own search engine, on which incidentally you had to pay a charge for each search. As wild as it sounds, this is a direct parallel to what is happening right now in the mobile arena.

It's puzzling to read these words, after an article by The Register had declared that the OMTP guidelines would do no harm to Vyke, but only to Truphone. If so, why is Vyke's latest announcement refering so much to the OMTP?

In every case a stand alone mobile VoIP application frees Vyke from the Truphone trap on Nokia N95 in the UK.

Vyke's mobile VoIP has the same N95 problems like Truphone

I nearly forgot to mention: The Inquirer reports that yet another mobile Voip provider has problems with the crippled Nokia N95, supplied by Orange and Vodafone in the UK. Vyke Mobile has also fallen into the Truphone trap.

Mobile incumbents agree to lock down alternative VoIP providers

The air is getting even thinner for mobile VoIP companies like Truphone or Wifimobile, tells The Register. The Open Mobile Terminal Alliance, a organisation of big mobile operators like Orange, Vodafone, T-Mobile and 3 has published a guidance for network operators and handset manufacturers on provisioning and maintaining VoIP settings on new handsets. It covers only the usage of pre-installed VoIP clients on handsets, such as that used by Truphone or Wifimobile. Applications which are downloaded later, like Fring or Vyke, go free.

According to the OMTP specifications, operators are entitled to remove or lock down VoIP applications on subsidised handsets, but they must provide the ability to remove that lock when the contract period expires, just as they now will release a handset to be used on another network (SIM lock).

Bad luck for some independent mobile VoIP providers, as the incumbents agree on that the initial VoIP settings should be securely protected in the terminal, and can only be changed by the operator. When the service contract comes to an end, the customer can request the provider to unlock the Terminal’s VoIP settings and associate the pre-installed voice applications with alternative VoIP service providers.

This means in most cases: No Truphone or Wifimobile in the first two years of a contract.

Much better off are independent mobile VoIP companies which install their own applications, such as Skype, Fring, Gizmo Project, Jajah, iSkoot, Nimbuzz or Yeigo. The customer may be able to install third-party applications (Java or other Terminal OS applications) that offer VoIP calling using third-party VoIP providers. The only VoIP applications that are forced to use the operator’s settings are those that were pre-installed on the Terminal, and only during the term of the contract that the Terminal was supplied with.

The mobile phone users must be informed that VoIP has been locked or disabled. So the removal of menu items, in the way that Vodafone and Orange crippled their Nokia N95, wouldn't be allowed. The Register states that the guidance is not binding to the member companies. But as so many network operators were involved in writing, it's surely what we will see next on the entire European or world market.

Let's see if that's acceptable to regulators such as UK's Ofcom and what e. g. Truphone will do. Their new software Truphone 3.0 is so feature rich and has presence functions so that it seems quite similar to the mentioned "alternative VoIP applications" to me. If Truphone 4.0 packed it all in the software, instead of using Nokias underlying SIP functions, they would be out of trouble.

But then Truphone would suck as much battery as Fring does.


UPDATE:

I got an email from Wifimobile's John O'Prey. He says that his company is NOT affected. "This is not the case as our client is a stand alone application which can be installed. I would be most grateful if you could kindly correct this."

Sorry for that!

Crippling the Nokia N95 might be the right move

The Truphone blog tells that some UK clients of the company reported a strange behaviour of their brand new Nokia N95. The devices they've bought under contract from their carriers appear to have internet telephony disabled. This means they cannot use Truphone as they'd hoped.

Too bad, but understandable as VoIP experts Jeff Pulver and Andy Abramson comment. Especially Jeff puts himself very much in the shoes of the mobile carriers:

Given the reality of how much money Nokia makes on an annual basis from companies like Orange UK and Vodaphone UK, if I worked at Nokia and had the sales responsibility for say the Vodaphone account, I would do whatever my customer asked of me to keep and protect their business.

It's strange to see how the VoIP community criticizes and approves the crippling of the N95 at the same. I feel so schizophrenic too. As a hard core VoIP user I refuse to block VoIP on mobile phones. But as a rational person I understand that the mobile carriers have to be afraid of it. I am the best example.

I just love to use Wifi telephony on my new Nokia E61. I use three different SIP telephony providers at the same time. Two of them ring on my mobile phone and my desk phone at the same time when a call enters. Only Truphone doesn’t do this because it works only on mobile phones.

It’s really easy to enter the data for the SIP connection into the E61. In fact I use about 20 different SIP providers on my mobile phone: Pulver, Gizmo, Iptel.org, Ekiga.net and the like are all tied to my Voxalot account. I wrote about this before.

Markus Göbel's Tech News Comments:
Why I use about 20 different VoIP providers

You can dial 20 different numbers or SIP addresses and they all ring on my mobile phone. Great!

I even tried VoIP on GPRS because I have really cheap data prices. It works, only the delay is horrible. But if my carrier provided 3G I would surely use it for VoIP. With HSDPA and VoIP the sound would be crystal clear. Look at cities like London! They will have spotless Wifi coverage soon. No need for using the mobile carrier anymore. Instead my prefered no frills VoiP operator gives me unlimited calls to 40 countries for the price of about 4 dollars a month. This includes my own country, what's of course the most important.

"Free calls" like in "free beer" are the VoIP killer app to me. When I see my low costs for calls from my mobile and my desk phone I understand the suffering of the incumbents and the mobile carriers.

But maybe that's just the payback for the former years' rip off.