"Harry Stottle" <sorryspamdoesntwork@nospam.uk.co> wrote in message
news:q2qFj.3546$6R1.1904@newsfe4-gui.ntli.net...
>I was considering taking out a mobile broadband service and was looking
>through the options. T-mobile are advertising their Web'n'Walk service at
>£15.00/month for 3 GB, but when I dug through a couple of layers of small
>print, I found the following
> <Quote> We do not permit use of this service for internet phone
> calls</Quote>
> Link http://www.t-mobile.co.uk/services/uk/fairuse/
> This seems like a restrictive practice to me, a mobile phone company
> providing a different type of service, but banning users of that service
> from using it in a way that could result in competition to their main
> service. How do others see this, and does anyone know if this could be
> challenged legally, because if T-Mobile are allowed to get away with
> banning internet phone calls through their broadband service, then I can
> see VoIP being increasingly threatened.
>
Interesting tack and one that I others have pondered over many a time.
I can understand it with the primarily mobile phone wallahs blocking VoIP
ports but fdo wonder when others with a vested interest in telecomms start
rising en masse.
Take the O2 service. I was led to believe initially that VoIP ports were
blocked on that whilst their sister service Bethere did not.
Is that still the case does anyone know?

When I gave up my Telewest landlines the retentions dept assured me thta
VoIP wouldn't work. Wasn't reliable etc...
Didn't really like to tell them that I was cancelling from a SIP phone, lol.
I was waiting for all manner of problems on UDP ports tpo follow.
As it happens the VoIP uptime is now greater than that of the landline which
did fallover every now and then.

If there was a considerable mass exodus to VoIP then I could see ISPs
pointing to AUP's in a bid to wriggle out and get it cothered.

Just my ponderings for what they are worth.

Regards

Alastair