Major U.S. carriers haven't been happy about the emergence of Skype and other third-party VOIP clients, which threaten to undermine the global industry revenue model.
One can hardly blame them for not rapidly embracing new technology that threatens to bankrupt them, anymore than politicians will embrace being voted out of office by more attractive candidates, labor unions will embrace automation or outsourcing, accountants and attorneys will get excited about really-simple tax codes or Microsoft is happy about effective and free operating systems and business productivity suites.
Nor can one blame VoIP enthusiasts, application providers or users for wanting VoIP to work on whatever devices they typically use.
As VoIP gets better and better, more and more users are going to conclude tha all they really need from their service provider is good broadband. Someday, service providers will have weaned themselves off a reliance on voice revenues and found other business models that work as well, or better. In the interim, service providers will not move any faster than they have to.
So disputes are going to keep occurring.
The Free Press has asked the Federal Communications Commission to investigate whether or not the restriction of Skype use on AT&T Apple iPhones, except when in Wi-Fi access mode, is in violation of federal law.
The Voice on the Net coalition Europe, which includes Google, Microsoftand Intel, has asked European telecom regulators to ban blocking of VoIP apps on 3G networks an devices. T-Mobile Deutschland blocks use of Skype application on the iPhone, for example.
AT&T allows use of Skype when users are connected to Wi-Fi, rather than the 3G wireless broadband network. That's AT&T's way of not prohibiting use of the applications, but also not encouraging them to replace voice directly. Inability to control network quality sometimes is invoked as the reason for not encouraging Skype or over-the-top VoIP over the existing network.
Someday that will change. At some point all networks will be IP-only. For wireless providers, that generally coincides with the arrival of fourth-generation networks. For wired network providers, a switch to all-fiber or high-bandwidth digital subscriber line access (plus robust wholesale regulations) typically is the driver.
But so long as the entire network is supported by legacy voice, services providers are not going to encourage IP-based voice any more than they have to. Do you know any executives, at any company, in any industry, willing to put themselves out of business as fast as possible by enabling customers to avoid buying their products?
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