Are Vodacom blocking VoIP? Nope - it's AT&T and Apple!

Warning: This is a rant.

I'm on the road today, between a client site in Westlake and the home office when I discover that Vodacom have decided I don't need to talk to anyone. I call my wife 3 times in a row to hear her repeating "HELLO?" in more and more exasperated tones while I bellow fruitlessly into my headset, then rip the headset out of the phone just in case it is on the fritz, not the network. Nada. No joy.

A colleague calls me. Same story.

So I think, no problem, I have Skype and Fring on this pocket rocket-phone, I'll just call via Skype-Out.

Yawellnofine. First this:

Which irritates me intensely, so I think maybe Fring... :

at which stage I'm beyond irritated. If they could have heard me, I'd have called 111 just to vent at them. I resort to an SMS to inform wife and colleague that I'll call when I reach a landline. By the time I'm at the office, Vodacom are allowing me to make calls which involve two-way speech again. How nice of them. They charge us far more than they should for calls, duck and dive when they're pressured to reduce prices, and then it appears they block us from making use of VoIP over 3G.

I need to look into what they're admitting to here and what right they have to do this. Probably find that hidden in their Ts&Cs they have taken the right to dictate what I may and may not do with my phone. If so, that is just wrong. #vodacom #brandfail

Update (2009/10/15)

Thanks to Tim Keller for insight into the real problem here. Typical of the arrogance displayed by the likes of Apple and AT&T, we're impacted. I'm sure Vodacom were not complaining though.

Telecoms, Telecoms

Comments

[Tim]

I've just come from 4 (painful) years with MTN... and Vodacom feels like a luxury. Now there's a sad reality of the SA cellular space.

The WIFI requirement for VoIP calls descends from the AT&T restrictions placed upon Apple, and thus the App Store T&Cs. I'm not aware of similar rules from Vodacom/Vodafone's side.

It is for that reason, inter alia, that I chose a Blackberry. I get to decide what runs on my phone.

Pathetically hacky solution for VoIP calls while on the movie with your iPhone:
Get an app called JoikuSpot for your old Nokia E65. It turns the Nokia into a Wifi AP (there's a free light version).

Then connect the iPhone to the JoikuSpot AP and make your VoIP calls.