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Tuesday, July 24, 2007

Truphone's Victory Over T-Mobile

Back in July a battle had soared between T-mobile U.K. and Truphone, a VoIP service provider. Truphone had accused T-mobile of banning calls from T-mobile to its network. This is yet another classic case of insecurity creeping into the minds of the established mobile network providers. Believing in killing the competition rather than ensuing a healthy competition, numerous mobile operators have been trying out different ways of curbing VoIP services.

The reasoning given by T-mobile U.K. was that this conflict arose due to the inability of both the companies to come to a compromise on the interconnection fees. However this seems like an excuse to get out of the muddy situation of explaining the real reason.

A court case had ensued between the two concerned parties. In the preliminary ruling the court has given the verdict in favor of Truphone, ordering T-mobile to let its users terminate the calls through Truphone's network. Accordingly, both companies should start to negotiate the interconnection fees. In the absence of agreeing to a common rate, the court will take it upon itself to give the final verdict on the rate.

This battle is just the beginning of the few that are likely to follow as VoIP services begin to spread its wings across the globe slowly attracting the customers of mobile operators.

Does this show that mobile operators are scared of this new technology? Why would they be scared of something that they term as 'ineffective and useless'? Too contradictory, isn't it? This panic reaction of operators is definitely a telltale of their hidden insecurity that stems from the acknowledgment that IP telephony has got all that it takes to completely take over, leaving them without business.

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