Mobile VoIP provider Truphone has applied for an injunction against T-Mobile UK in an attempt to get the operator to allow its customers to call Truphone users.
VoIP operators like Truphone offer customers cheaper phone calls because they run through the internet rather than standard phone networks. This is seen as particularly advantageous when travelling, due to the perceived high cost of mobile roaming. Truphone operates via a software client which can be installed on certain smartphones, but which usually runs through the phone's Wi-Fi connection — thus giving no revenue to the mobile operator. Despite this, Truphone is allowed to issue telephone numbers beginning with "07", thus giving the appearance of them being standard mobile phone numbers.
However, according to chief executive James Tagg, T-Mobile is stopping Truphone from properly launching its business, which is currently in beta form. Speaking on Tuesday at a meeting of the Internet Telephony Services Providers' Association (ITSPA), Tagg claimed that T-Mobile UK was the "only operator in the world" that did not allow its customers to call a Truphone number. He also suggested that public safety could be at risk because of this, in that a Truphone user's "sick aunt" would not be able to ring him or her in an emergency if she happened to be a T-Mobile user.
In the same panel discussion, BT's general manager for future voice services, Dave Axam, described T-Mobile's stance as "childish". ITSPA chairman Eli Katz also joined in to say that T-Mobile's refusal to interconnect with Truphone was unsustainable and "has to fail".
Now Truphone has taken the matter to the courts. Wednesday's injunction application, heard at the Royal Courts of Justice in London, argued that "since T-Mobile holds approximately 20 to 25 percent of the UK mobile phone market, Truphone cannot launch its business unless and until T-Mobile 'activates' Truphone's numbers on the T-Mobile network". The application went on to accuse T-Mobile of "abusing a dominant position without objective justification, contrary to section 18 of the Competition Act 1998".
T-Mobile's counter-argument maintains that the mobile operator had in fact presented Truphone with an interconnection proposal, which Truphone allegedly rejected, and that Truphone is trying to charge too high a price to connect calls from T-Mobile's network.
Truphone has had spats with other mobile operators in the past, specifically when it accused Vodafone and Orange of blocking its service from being run on their Nokia N95 handsets.
Neither Truphone nor T-Mobile were available for further comment at the time of writing. A judgement on the case is expected on Monday.
