Apple loosens SDK restrictions, allows VoIP over 3G

macnn.com

28 points·sil3ntmac··6 comments

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 commodity provider.

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.

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-3...

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.

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.

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.

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