Vodafone and Orange VOIP-locking handsets; RebTel not impressed

I had a note in from Will at RebTel, letting me know about his latest blog post on the RebTel blog.

Here are the headlines from that post:

– Orange and Vodafone today decided to remove VoIP functionality from Nokia’s N95 handset

We’ve covered this before on SMS Text News.. just ridiculous.

– Orange was asked by Nokia whether they wanted the VoIP functionality switched on or off, and Orange selected off

Chumps. They actually said ‘errrr, you know what, switch it off… aye…’ Deary me.

Vodafone believes that VoIP over mobile is not yet a mature service proposition, doesn’t have guaranteed quality of service, and does not provide the customer experience demanded of any service Vodafone launch

That’s bollocks isn’t it? ‘Not yet a mature service’ — just like picture messaging wasn’t a mature service, yet they and every other operator went to market with ‘MMS’ held together with sticky tape.

It may well not be ‘mature’ but what’s the problem letting the geeky elements of your customer groups try it out and play with it?

Mobile cartels are panicking once again and are doing what they can to protect their revenue

Agreed. The last thing you need is, for example, the Square Mile here in Central London wired up with The Cloud WiFi and them offering you fixed price service to your Nokia N95 for 9.99 a month. Not good if you’re a mobile operator. It doesn’t exactly spell ‘huge profit’ 😉 Especially when you’re having to wave goodbye to 2.35 per meg…