Why isn't the US the "land of the free" also in VoIP?

I don’t understand the US American market of VoIP devices. The PhoneBoy tells terrible things in the VoIP Weblog:

It seems that the VoIP providers are just as bad--or worse--than the mobile phone carriers in the United States, which generally don't let you take your phone to a competing provider. Unlike with US mobile phones, where there are two standards, pretty much all customer premises VoIP hardware speaks SIP, the lingua franca of VoIP. Just recently, I threw a Vonage-locked Linksys ATA/Router combo that Vonage refused to unlock for me. What a waste!

And Garrett Smith explains "How to Unlock SunRocket Gizmo For Use With InPhonex".

"Poor Americans", must I say. Why do they accept ATAs that are locked to just one provider? Because they don't know it better from their mobile telephony? Why do Vonage or Sunrocket users have to throw away their hardware and cannot simply use it with another company? Why doesn’t PhoneGnome admit that “Free calls between PhoneGnome members” is a normal feature that is available with every other VoIP provider. It’s called "on net calls" and nothing special.

In Germany we use open devices, such as Fritz!Box, where you can install up to 10 VoIP providers of your choice. One of them can be PhoneGnome, because it also supports the open SIP standard, but it doesn't have to be the only one.

With intelligent ATA dial plans you can assure to make only free on net calls and to always use the cheapest provider for your other calls. People use to play around with the cheapest routes of the various Betamax brands, depending on where they are calling to, and they like to install several of them at the same time.

In the USA, in contrast, VoIP devices are commonly locked to just one provider. Like cell phones that you have to throw away when you change the provider.

Is this really the "land of the free"?

Who needs Sitófono when he can have that for free from Voxalot?

The PhoneBoy writes at The VoipWeblog about Sitófono, the click-to-call solution from Abbeynet.

Sitofono is a rather unique product in the VoIP marketplace. It enables customers to click on a button on your website and they can connect with you. All a customer has to do is input their phone number into the computer and their phone rings, connecting you! Meanwhile, Luca Filifgheddu, the CEO of Abbeynet, let's us know on his personal blog that getting a Sitofono is even easier than it used to be. Four steps and a few hundred Euros later, and you've got click-to-call on your web site for a year.

Why pay a few hundred Euros for click-to-call? I have it just set up for free with Voxalot, powered by free VoIP providers of my choice which are automatically selected by a dial plan:

This is a real phone service. Think twice before you call me at night or try to annoy me with this click-to-call! I live in the Central European Time zone and have those calls filtered, so that my phone rings only at reasonable times. Also I have a nice call log where I can see all the callers' numbers and might call you back.

German Mobile Network Operators are now definitely banning the use of VoIP

Vodafone and T-Mobile are now definitely banning the use of VoIP in their mobile networks in Germany. This had been long announced. Yet two years ago Vodafone Germany changed its Terms of Service (TOS) to reserve its right to block VoIP from the 8th of july 2007 on. But they weren't sure whether they would really do it. In february 2007 Vodafone Germany's speaker Heiko Witzke still told me that it was unclear whether or not Vodafone would really adopt the ban.

Now, since the deadline has passed, the German webzine Teltarif inquired and got a straight answer: It's forbidden to use Vodafone Germany's data plans for VoIP, says the press department. The other German mobile telephony providers, E-Plus, O2 and T-Mobile, have similar footnotes in their TOS. T-Mobile even forbids the use of instant messaging over GPRS and 3G. But none of the four companies seems to filter their data traffic for voice packets yet, maybe because this would slow down the entire network.

Crippling VoIP would be really annoying for a friend of mine who recently signed a Vodafone contract to use 3G instead of DSL on his laptop. He doesn't know much about technology but loves to use Skype. With Vodafone's HSDPA and HSUPA 3G he enjoys download speeds of 3,6 Mbps and uploads at 1,45 Mbps in the whole city of Berlin, which makes him quite happy. Vodafone charges him 45 Euros monthly but someone should tell him that he is violating the TOS. I am sure that he would directly cancel his contract.

He had weird problems anyway. The service, Vodafone Mobile Connect, doesn't run on Windows Vista. But as a newbie he has a brandnew laptop with Microsoft's latest OS. We installed everything from CD as told. But it did not work and so we went to a Vodafone shop for a reinstallation. The clerk was quite friendly and invested one hour of his valuable time for a reinstallation, but all in vain. Then we went home and downloaded the latest Vodafone Mobile Connect software from the website and did all possible firmware updates. Still no success, although the Vodafone website tells that the latest software should work with Vista.

Luckily we found this solution which tells how to use the Vodafone 3G PCMCIA card as if it was a normal network adapter. This works great. My friend could uninstall the crappy Vodafone software entirely and is now happily surfing the internet.

No Truphone over Fring anymore

With its new version 3.0 Truphone has not only added new features, they have also closed a security breach. I realized it today. Until the latest version there existed a trick to retrieve Truphone's SIP password and then install it on every other SIP device. This was quite convenient for people who don't want to use Wifi continuously on their Nokia cell phones because it drains the battery.

These people could just install Truphone on their softphone or ATA to receive phone calls with their Truphone number. UK users of a Nokia N95 with crippled VoIP could avoid their problems by using Truphone together with the 3rd party software Fring. I guess Truphone was not too happy with that since one of their revenue streams is call forward: When you are outside a Wifi area Truphone forwards incoming calls on your cost to your cell phone number and takes its share from these costs. Unless you have a US mobile phone number, then the call forward is free.

If you have installed Truphone 3.0 it's now impossible to find your SIP password on your mobile phone. At least unless another hacker finds another way to retrieve it. I can't reveal how it had been done before, since there are still users of version 2.0 who could make use of it and therewith violate Truphone's terms and conditions:

Compatible Handset

You may only use the software and service with compatible handsets or devices identified on our website www.truphone.com. You must check the list of handsets on the Truphone website to ensure You download the correct software for your phone. Truphone is not liable if You do not have a compatible handset or if You have downloaded the wrong version of the software for your handset. Truphone reserve the right to terminate this agreement should you be using the Truphone service with a handset or device that is not identified on the website as compatible.

I suppose that call forward and interconnection fees are Truphone's way to fund their recently anncounced free mobile calls to 40 countries around the world for the rest of the year. That's why they are so happy to have won the court injunction against T-Mobile which had blocked calls to Truphone's new numbers. More insight on the issue and how Truphone earns from calls to it's numbers can be found here.