T-mobile tries to hold prices high in the UK
According to this article GigaOM CellCarriers fear mobile VoIP planet « T mobile in the UK is refusing to allow their customers to phone numbers associated with Truphone from their handsets.
Truphone offer a VOIP service and client for certain phones that T-Mobile don’t like. T-Mobile is now seeing the effect of giving people flat rate internet access - and probably realising their worse fears. Unfortunately they have started the ball rolling and other operators are now providing flat rate access also.
Blocking access to certain web services is something that you might expect from operators as they come to grips with the loss of income as consumer get closer to paying the true cost of a phone call or SMS. I am not sure however of the legality of an operator blocking access to certain numbers - and if it is legal it shouldn’t be.
T-mobile should get respect for starting the flat rate access and helping the UK keep it’s edge in mobile content and internet access, but they are going to have to start adjusting to some new business models that reflect they are really only a network access provider. The winds are changing and those that start to work with them will profit the most. T-Mobile’s behaviour reminds me of the music companies having to struggle with digital music and the network, in the end they left Apple to give them the solution. Will it be companies like Truphone that the telcos actually need to get things working?
What if I had the option on my phone of making a high quality call and a low quality call? I think that sometimes I’d use one and other times I’d use the other - depending on who the call was to and my budget etc. That is what people are getting from the VOIP merchants and the crazy thing is that T-mobile could be one of these VOIP merchants also and still making money.
As for SMS - they need to start offering SMS at rates much closer to it’s true cost - i.e. next to nothing.
Popularity: 26% [?]
[…] Squace beta - my thoughtsiPhone battery now upto 8 hours of talk timeiPhone - must have iTunes loginLack of iPhone SDK - marketing disaster with developersOpera Mini™ vs iPhoneOpera Mini™ BetaiPhone 3rd parties a let downAnthropologists and mobile telephone usageNo money in wallpaper since the cameraphoneT-mobile tries to hold prices high in the UK […]