4 ms·

If VOIP over 3G is enabled, it is the beginning of the end for the profits of the big cell phone providers. They will be relegated to being a "utility" or comm

• there 17y ago
  those big cell phone providers being the same ones providing the data network to carry the voip calls, of course. it wouldn't be a stretch for at&t to claim their feeble network can't support voip and block it or just deprioritize voip packets enough that the calls are not clear.
• wmf 17y ago
  More likely they'll set data prices such that a VoIP call costs more than a circuit-switched voice call. This wouldn't even be evil, since a VoIP call uses more bandwidth than a circuit-switched call. Also, VoIPo3G generally sucks: http://gigaom.com/2010/01/19/iphone-the-lack-of-voice-over-3g-alternative-theory/ http://gigaom.com/2010/01/19/iphone-the-lack-of-voice-over-3...
  • andyking 17y ago
    They could also do what 3 have done in the UK with Skype - all their new phones have a 3-produced Skype app preloaded which appears to work just like any other installation of Skype. Behind the scenes, updating your contact list and sending / receiving IMs are done over the data network - however, when you make or receive a Skype call it's routed over the voice network and simply not charged.
    • lsb 17y ago
      That's crazy-backwards. The IMs are 1kBit of data, whereas a phone call (considering voice coding at 16kBit/s for skype-ish quality) probably amount to megabytes of data having to go at near-realtime rates. It's good that they're still in business, I suppose.
• pmjordan 17y ago
  I'm kind of surprised this was Apple's policy to begin with. Some networks already block or deliberately slow down VoIP traffic (e.g. Skype) anyway.