Vodafone Blocks VoIP

[David Farber <dave () farber net>]

Begin forwarded message:

From: Dewayne Hendricks <dewayne () warpspeed com>
Date: July 14, 2005 7:28:22 PM EDT
To: Dewayne-Net Technology List <dewayne-net () warpspeed com>
Subject: [Dewayne-Net] Vodafone Blocks VoIP
Reply-To: dewayne () warpspeed com


2005-07-11
Vodafone Blocks VoIP

By Gary Kim
<http://www.voipweekly.com/news_detail.php?news_id=162>
Good news: Vodafone Germany is dramatically increasing the amount of  
mobile data users can send and receive, says Arne Hess, in a post.  
Bad news: Vodafone is blocking independent VoIP providers. Hess  
notes: "I have no idea yet how they do it in detail, but I can  
imagine they've started to block typical VoIP ports."

Poster Voker Weber on Wowe dot net confirms that post: "Vodafone is  
also starting to block VoIP traffic," says Weber. "That shows that  
the mobile providers are in serious trouble defending their  
imbalanced pricing structure."

Yet another poster points out that Vodafone also blocks access to the  
Skype Web site as "inappropriate content." The walled garden approach  
also extends to video services. "Now, Vodafone (in the United  
Kingdom) is trying to defend its position for blocking all video  
content that isn't Vodafone approved," notes poster Mike Masnick.

Vodafone isn’t alone. Masnick also points out that Clearwire, which  
has struck a deal with Bell Canada that makes Bell Canada Clearwire’s  
authorized VoIP provider, hasn't "been paying attention to the whole  
‘network neutrality’ debate or the fact that an ISP has been fined  
for blocking Vonage," says Masnick. "Instead, Clearwire proudly  
states that they will block any application they don't like —  
including non-Bell Canada VoIP and any streaming audio or video  
offering."

"They claim they need to do this ‘to ensure network performance  
reliability,’ but can't explain how it's okay for them to offer VoIP,  
but Vonage must be blocked," says Masnick.

Of course, there’s "good" mobile VoIP, and "bad" mobile VoIP. It’s  
hard to see how fixed-mobile convergence is going to work, in either  
the enterprise or consumer market segments, unless VoIP over mobile  
devices is enabled. IDC analyst Alex Slawsby says there will be a  
gradual switch in wireless calling to VoIP technology. "I think we'll  
start to see it expanding in both enterprise and consumer worlds,"  
Slawsby says.

So, from some vantage points, "good" VoIP is the walled garden type,  
where a carrier can control its use. "Bad" VoIP is third-party VoIP,  
accessed by an end user from the public Internet. Skype, for example,  
already is offering Skype for Wi-Fi-enabled smart phones and personal  
digital assistants. Skype also has an alliance with the cell phone  
maker Motorola, raising the possibility that Skype might edge toward  
mainstream phones, but immediately only making Skype conversations  
possible on portable handsets used with a Wi-Fi connection.

That said, cellular handsets that double as VoIP phones appear to be  
coming. Motorola plans at least one phone will be sold to the high- 
end corporate market through Avaya. The phone will provide cellular  
GSM (global system for mobile communications) service as usual. But  
in the vicinity of a company's network, built-in Wi-Fi connectivity  
is used to connect a call via VoIP instead of GSM.

NTT DoCoMo of Japan began offering a similar VoIP-enabled handset to  
corporate customers last year.

So the issue is whether mobile operators come to see VoIP as a major  
threat to their voice revenues or a necessary evil as they strive to  
build data revenues, which might well require openness to Web-based  
content accessed from the public Internet. So far, the walled garden  
approach seems to be in favor.
Weblog at: <http://weblog.warpspeed.com>



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