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German court bans VoiP on iPhone

'Unfair business practices'

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A VoiP application for Apple's iPhone has been banned by the Higher Regional Court in Hamburg, Germany at the behest of T-Mobile.

The app - available through Apple's iTunes App Store - allows users to make cheap phone calls using T-Mobile's Wi-Fi network and bypass roaming charges.

However, that's not why the app called Sipgate got banned. The court argues that Sipgate makes use of unfair business practices to pull customers from T-Mobile to its own services. Sipgate only runs on iPhones of the first generation up to firmware 1.1.4 and requires the "BSD Subsystem" for installation. Jailbreaking the iPhone is a violation of T-Mobile's contract terms, the court says.

Sipgate had received a cease and desist letter from T-Mobile's lawyers in July, but decided not to comply with the order. Instead, it fought back. The company said T-Mobile was misleading its customers by not telling them it offers a limited service without VoiP, IM and VPN usage. A German regional court agreed, barring T-Mobile from advertising its iPhone plans as "open internet access with unlimited data".

But now the courts have sided with T-Mobile - the ban only includes Germany. Other countries where T-Mobile is the sole provider of the iPhone, such as the Netherlands, aren't affected. ®

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Latest Comments

Totally inacurate and crap.

It is obvious that the author of this doesn't have a clue what he is talking about.

"The app - available through Apple's iTunes App Store - allows users to make cheap phone calls using T-Mobile's Wi-Fi network and bypass roaming charges."

and

"Sipgate only runs on iPhones of the first generation up to firmware 1.1.4 and requires the "BSD Subsystem" for installation."

Total bullshit.

First: You dont have Apple's App store available for versions 1.4. Its only available for 2.0.x.

Second: You dont have Apple distribute software that needs a jailbroken iphone.

Get your story right.

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Anonymous Coward

Tee hee

well that is what happens if your platform is not open.

If the platform is open, then it cannot be stopped, roll your own sound to digital, network aware, streaming encoder, it is not rocket science.

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In contrast

If you only get one of those USB-sticks for UMTS, you can also plut them into one of the better german VoIP-Routers and then use any phone you want.

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