Tuesday, January 6. 2009VoIP Provoking Mobile Carriers In To IrrationalityJohn Linton When Exetel first began to look for an HSPA service we always considered that VoIP would be an essential 'data service' just as it is with wire line broad band. I would have thought that there would be NO person on the face of the planet who wouldn't think exactly the same. VoIP became an important usage of a data network over two years ago and today more than half (and continuing to grow) customers signing up for an Exetel broad band service also sign up for an Exetel VoIP service. Clearly some people signing up for an Exetel broad band service already have a VoIP service with another provider making the 'total' vip users muchcloser to 75%. Exetel, like many commercial companies and an increasing number of government departments, only uses VoIP in its offices and from its directors homes and, more recently, from many of its directors and employees mobile telephones. With over 50% of new Exetel customers also choosing to use VoIP it would appear to me to be self evident that most Australians (I don't think Exetel users are any different to other ISP's users) now use VoIP as their standard telephone 'technology'. So I was amazed to receive an email from an Exetel 'associate' that pointed out to me that Optus had recently changed its mobile SFOA to include the following: 5.14 Voice over Internet Protocol or VOIP service calls We will charge you for calls made using the service on our 3G network to make voice calls over the Internet or any other Internet Protocol (IP) based network, including proprietary peer-to-peer internet telephony networks. Voice Over Internet Protocol (VOIP) services (other than PTT) will be charged at 1.5c per kilobyte of usage, capped at $9.90 per month until you reach 2 megabytes of usage in that month, after which you will be charged at 0.3c per kilobyte of usage for the remainder of that month. Of course, Optus can change the conditions under which it supplies its mobile services to meet its own requirements and doubtless there are clauses in its SFOA that allow those changes to be made at any time. I also understand that the convoluted, and incredibly obfuscatory methods of 'plan setting' used by all mobile companies have reached a level of such obscure complexity that 'changes' in technology may take time to penetrate the thinking of the 'marketing personnel' responsible for thinking up ever more complex ways of 'hiding the truth' from prospective buyers. However - it seems almost unbelievable to me that such a main stream world wide technology change (from POTS to VoIP) that has been happening for over two years would, apparently, come as a surprise to a major mobile carrier. I had been aware from a visit to the UK over 18 months ago that EU mobile carriers had tried to slow down the use of VoIP over their services by 'crippling' the mobile handset hardware they were re-selling when the first data over mobile handsets were used but both by subsequent law and the technical ingenuity of end users those attempts were quickly rendered inoperative. I, of course, understand that the 'capped' and 'timeless' mobile call plans offered by mobile carriers are based on very high mobile call charges and assumptions on call usage based on previous call patterns. I can also understand that some 'marketing people' didn't foresee that VoIP would be used on their mobile services when they added data components to 'capped' and 'timeless' plans. Careless of the marketing people but such situations happen from time to time as things change - no big deal - use new modeling assumptions moving forward. There is VERY LITTLE DOUBT (in my mind at least) that VoIP will be used as extensively on HSPA by end users as it will be on wire line broad band services and I can't begin to understand that any mobile carrier's "plan constructors" wouldn't know this. They MUST have known this when you give it a moments thought. What appears to have surprised them (based on the change to the SFOA - and the same changes were made to the conditions for the 'timeless' plans) was that people buying data plans (or including data plans) for mobile hand sets would also use VoIP. Why this should have come as a surprise, again, is beyond my comprehension. In Optus case, as one minor example, we made it very clear that we believed that VoIP over HSPA handsets would be very appealing to the sort of corporate customers we had in mind to market to. We also made the point that one MAJOR HSPA advantage was that it was a "naked" broad band solution and that "naked" ADSL2 was increasingly out selling ADSL2 that needed a phone line by 2:1 at the moment and continuing to increase. I guess all that means is that Exetel is such a tiny customer of Optus that our stated intentions over six - twelve months never got to the 'ears' (or perhaps 'eyes') of anyone in Optus who was interested in such views and then checked out what was happening to VoIP over HSPA around the world. Or, perhaps, they figured they could control the mobile hand set manufactures to cripple any HSPA hand set's abilities to use VoIP. I don't know how this will 'play out' in terms of either Optus or the other Australian mobile carriers 'adapting' their ts and cs but one thing I would be fairly sure about is that VoIP will be used over HSPA by almost every HSPA user by the end of this calendar year if not sooner than that. I must re-check the terms of my HSPA data supply contract. Trackbacks
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I can see more people installing Asterisk at home to work around this if they start charging exorbitant rates to "telecard" no's. But why they don't just move to a HSPA handset and Exetel like plan beats me!
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It looks like a "knee jerk" reaction taken without any real thought.
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This is explained by the fact that many people making decisions do not really understand that voice traffic is just data. The existing mobile call protocols are just that, a different protocol for controlling the data connection and prioritizing the traffic.
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I would have thought it reflected the fact that voice and data cost the big telcos essentially nothing, and that they charge money in order to finance the infrastructure debt (plus profit).
So it doesn't really make sense to charge based on their cost, but rather to charge based on what the customer values. If they think we value voice calls more than web surfing, then it makes sense to charge more for it. Of course different people value different things (fixed caps, transparent price structures, security of a well known brand) which is why there is room for lots of different price structures. Comment (1)
I agree with this article, but I have to admit I'm surprised that you're able to see this point of view when you so strongly couldn't see the problem with Optus charging international rates for mobile calls terminated in Australia at a VoIP provider.
http://johnl.blogs.exetel.com.au/index.php?/archives/1549-Sometimes-You-Just-Have-To-Shake-Your-Head.......html Comments (3)
I could see very clearly what you were saying in the original issue but my disagreement was with the fact that people would be surprised that major carriers would use their contracts to plug loop holes that allowed scamming of their services.
I don't believe that any commercial entity should be taken for a ride by scammers just because they didn't think they would be ripped off. Changing the same contract to 'stratify' data types is, again, their prerogative but my comments were really based on their marketeer's stupidity in not understanding that VoIP would affect mobile in the same way it had affected wire line. I realise that the current problem is that the carriers have 'models' based on voice minute usage and the horrendously high per minute charges they use to mislead their customers in to thinking they are getting something for nothing. However the selling of pure data services raises the issue of whether mobile carriers are going to 'discriminate' against certain data types - assuming they can physically actually do that cost effectively. When all is said and done these are just one person's opinions. Comments (3)
John -- I checked this out with Optus because I thought it might make an interesting story, however it turns out that their SFOA is just poorly worded.
From their spokesperson (in response to my question: would VoIP data usage be charged in addition to a customer's existing data allowance as part of their plan?) "No it would not be charged in addition, it would be part of the customers data allowance in their plan. "In our iPhone T&Cs we state that VoIP calls are excluded from plan value. By this we mean that VoIP calls are excluded from Cap 'calls & text value' but; the data used by a VoIP application will come from the included data value in the plan or Mobile Internet Pack." Comments (3)
Well....that's good to hear from a 'spokesperson'.
It doesn't seem to address the specifics of the particular clause though - the detailing of the high charge for VoIP traffic rather than general data traffic. Or am I, once again, misunderstanding what is being said? Comment (1)
The impression I got from their comment was that the SFOA was poorly worded -- it only takes into account the circumstance of someone who doesn't have a data plan. The point they were trying to make, I think, was that VoIP calls are charged at data rates -- whatever they may be on your plan -- not voice rates. I don't know why they didn't just say this though... so I think the paranoia is justified!
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...that seems to confirm that the didn't think it through and are now in a mess.
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