3UK Launches free VoLTE

Read this today and thought that once again Networks don't understand that Voice is the key product and whilst innovation is welcome, this is not it! To be fair to 3UK they are not the only ones to play games with the Customer EE have a similar VoLTE service that is only available to those taking a new HTC or have an iPhone 5/6.  

The first thing that gets my back up is that what is basically a software product has been launched on a single handset. It is not a marketing product to be used to force a different purchasing decision it's a service that should be capable of launching to ALL existing customers with a Smartphone not because you have bought a Galaxy S5.

Then we have the issue that the Executive put up to promote the launch is the CTO of 3UK rather than a dedicated executive for Voice.  If a mobile network cannot appoint a Board Member to oversea and promote a CORE product then just why should the customer respect it?

Since using a 4G handset I have experienced very poor quality phone calls. The ability to drop calls reminds me of the early days of Orange and One-2-One when in an effort to overcome such a poor experience Orange offered "free calls" if you had to redial as a result of dropped calls. 

For a long time I have spoken in private about the fact that voice revenues have declined in Mobile Networks because very little time is spent reviewing Voice as a product at Board Level.  I have not met a senior executive in Europe who sits on a board and has sole responsibility for Voice for the past ten years. As a result we have Customers not bothering to make phone calls on a mobile because the experience disappoints. 

I had hoped that by now Mobile users could have an active directory service which highlighted if a number in you contacts list was engaged before you called or inactive for a number of hours prior to your call.  Such a service could mean that rather than dialling the user could chose to send a text message.  I also hoped that the audio quality would have been upgraded to a level that allowed noise cancelation enhancing the ability to hear what has been said without asking the other person to speak up.      

More Truephone "good news"

Truephone has demoed its software running on an iPhone just as Apple lock down handsets that have been hacked.

Will we see Truephone take Apple to court when they get locked out? They say that they have every right to run on the Apple platform using the browser and wifi to make calls.

Guess they have not read that one of the key elements in any iPhone deal is that Mr Jobs not only gets the tribe to pay top dollar for his equipment he also gets a share of the revenues. Hope that the Truephone guys can make the app work on a Touch because they wont get it to work on an iPhone for long.

Wonder if they can demo it on the T-Mobile network next month when it goes live in Germany?

Telebusillis calls it like it is

Kieth has turned his analytical brain to the fallacy of mobile VoIP with the excellent post on now Truphone might be good a PR but they are not great at forming a business plan. As with my post yesterday about how the Dragon got it wrong Truphone does not compare like with like.

SKYPE no longer say that they are a VoIP play they say that they are a Messaging platform. Vonage have discovered that their business plan is flawed. Look at the number of me to services for VoIP that have closed the shop when it comes to consumer VoIP. Truphone should no better because of their history with Gosiptel.

The likes of Orange do not see VoIP as a threat, they look at the service and say at present it is not fit for purpose. They also like the fact that just such a service allows them to demonstrate where the value sits in the current customer proposition.

Before anyone moves toward a new service based on VoIP we first need to get the user based off prepaid and onto post paid. This is something that I just don't see happening too soon as it would result in the Networks having to reduce the current subscriber numbers to reflect the real numbers.