T-Mobile UK has claimed that voice-over-IP (VoIP) calls are too low in quality to be allowed over its data network.
As first reported by ZDNet UK earlier this week, the mobile provider has banned the use of VoIP and IM services over its new HSDPA-enabled data cards.
Initially it said the move was a "commercial decision" and such services were "not key" to its customers. But in a statement issued on Wednesday, T-Mobile said instead that VoIP technology "is not yet of a consistent or high enough level of quality to offer a good customer experience on the T-Mobile network".
"This situation may change in the future," it said, "but for now we believe it is in the best interests of our customers to restrict the use of VoIP technology."
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No other UK network prohibits the use of VoIP with datacards. Earlier this year the 3 network went so far as to sign a VoIP partnership with Internet telephony giant Skype.
3 spokesperson Rachel Channing told ZDNet UK that 3 makes a point of offering its customers "choice and a range of platforms for communications".
"We also have an advanced 3G network which means we can offer these services over a datacard or even a handset," she said on Thursday.
But telecoms analyst John Delaney of Ovum said T-Mobile’s decision was "not entirely illegitimate".
"Technical reasons make it difficult to offer consistent services," Delaney told ZDNet UK on Thursday, suggesting that VoIP’s bandwidth-hungry nature is one reason behind T-Mobile’s decision.
"The main reason operators are concerned about VoIP over their 3G networks is not so much a worry about substitution of calls and call revenues, but degrading the performance of the network for other users."
Margaret Hopkins, associate at Analysys, disagreed. "It’s not really real-time packets that hog bandwidth, it’s file transfer protocols such as TCP," Hopkins told ZDNet UK.
"I’m not saying you can be sure of perfect quality on a VoIP network, but it seems to me that’s not the main motivation for T-Mobile’s decision. This looks to me like they don’t want VoIP to affect their voice revenues." The ban was "excessively protective", Hopkins said.
Talkback
Loss of revenue is the main reason - not poor quality. Because the bandwidth used by VoIP is much greater than that used by mobile phones, even 3G ones, they will loose bandwidth avaiability so other uses may suffer. That means their income will suffer. So they ban it just to maintain income stream. Typical 'spin' to try using a 'quasi-technical' reasoning to hide the real motivation.
T-mobile's claim, while creative, is almost absurd enough for Jon Stewart to put it on the Daily Show. Unfortunately, the government can supply enough folly that T-Mobile probably won't get the air time.
In reality VoIP is hyped. Current infrastructure and common knowledge have not advanced enough to be able to say that overall VoIP is of enough continues quality and availability to be reliable enough as a good enough de facto alternative to more traditional approaches.
Fact is that for real-time communications (like voice conversations) real-time protocols are the safest bet despite (PR inflated?) evidence of the opposite given that required (peak) bandwidth and latency limits (to name some) are often underestimated. Certainly in times of collapsed available of totally available infrastructure or putting too much faith in symptom fighting add-on functionality like TOS. Not to mention security wise given the market drive for additional functionality at the cost of security and other, less immidiate, factors.
That said, it's good that VoIP is used anyway because one can question the value for money ratio of today's more traditional methods of voice communication.
In short: traditional methods are overpriced yet new innovative alternatives are not yet reliable enough constantly. Hmmm, which one of the lesser evil to choose from? For now perhaps both subject to the conditions of each moment in time per individual connection?