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Vyke To Circumvent Operator
Mobile VoIP Blocking With Stand Alone Mobile VoIP Software Upgrade
Other topics: Mobile VoIP
Blocking, VoIP Rebate,
VoIP Assets
Vyke
July 8, 2007
Vyke is pleased to announce that its wholly owned subsidiary, Vyke AS,
shall soon release an upgrade to its mobile Voice over Internet
Protocol ("VoIP") software that will restore full mobile VoIP
functionality to mobile handsets that have been intentionally crippled
by mobile operators.
Expected for release in the fourth quarter of 2007, the forthcoming
version of Vyke Mobile IP will provide users with a fully functional,
stand alone mobile VoIP application that circumvents the mobile
operator orchestrated removal of built-in handset VoIP capabilities. |
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Vyke's long term mobile
VoIP strategy is based upon empowering the user to make his or her own
choices regarding their communication services. In pursuing this
strategy, Vyke has recently announced an agreement with The Cloud
Networks Limited, the dominant European metropolitan area wireless
network provider, giving Vyke users the ability to access mobile VoIP
services across a network of 9,000+ hotspots and 16 large area,
metropolitan networks, including such areas as the City of London,
Canary Wharf, Manchester and Amsterdam.
Kjetil B�hn, Chief Executive Officer for Vyke Communications plc, said
"The incumbent mobile network operators must be feeling very
threatened by mobile VoIP. In the short amount of time that this
immerging technology has been in the market, they have already
responded by removing VoIP capabilities from mobile handsets that they
sell and by introducing very restrictive contract terms prohibiting
their customers from using their networks to access services such as
VoIP and third party peer-to-peer messaging clients. Vyke has been
dedicating itself to circumventing these obstructionist tactics by
developing our own stand-alone mobile VoIP application as well as
providing access to large scale wireless networks on behalf of our
customers. Users need to remember that these defensive tactics are not
to their benefit and that attempts to keep mobile VoIP out of the
market amount to nothing less than an announcement that the mobile
operators intend to continue overcharging consumers for as long as
they can."
Tommy Jensen, Executive Chairman for Vyke Communications plc commented
further, "The Open Mobile Terminal Platform ("OMTP"), a mobile
operator sponsored forum dealing with mobile handset issues, totally
missed the point with its June 28th report on mobile VoIP. This report
established the guidelines that mobile operators should follow in
disabling mobile VoIP features from new handsets sold under contract
subsidy. This really does beg the question of why the operator is
disabling anything when the whole point of providing contract
subsidies is to get a minimum term contract with the user. If the
mobile operator decides that the subscription plan and contract length
provide enough revenue to warrant a subsidized phone, what possible
grounds do they have to justify tampering with the capabilities of the
phone? The user should be able to do whatever they want with the phone
as they have already signed a contract that guarantees the mobile
operator sufficient revenues to justify them giving him or her the
device in the first place."
Jensen added, "There is an elephant in the room that no mobile
operator or regulatory agency seems to be acknowledging - network
neutrality. When Vodafone decides, as of June 1st, to prohibit their
users from using third party applications for services like instant
messaging, VoIP or text messaging, they are effectively censoring
their user's ability to choose what services they want to access from
a network that they are paying for. Imagine if a home DSL provider
blocked access to Google because they wanted to force you to use their
own search engine, on which incidentally you had to pay a charge for
each search. As wild as it sounds, this is a direct parallel to what
is happening right now in the mobile arena."
About VYKE
Vyke Communications plc is headquartered in the UK with subsidiaries
and offices in Norway, USA, Iceland and Malaysia. The strategic goal
of Vyke is to combine its expertise in VoIP-based communication
systems, mobile data service creation/handset technology and wholesale
carrier network management to provide a converged communication
solution.
About VYKE MOBILE IP
Vyke Mobile IP is a mobile Voice over IP (VoIP) service offering users
free calling from their mobile phone to fixed lines in Western Europe
and North America and, compared to typical mobile operator pricing
structures, up to a 95% discount for other calling destinations. One
of the first mass market mobile VoIP services, Vyke Mobile IP features
easy-to-use mobile handset based VoIP software |
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