Voice-babble-over-Wi-Fi lands in Europe – take that, mobe masties

The Netherlands is about to become a test-bed for Wi-Fi-first and Wi-Fi-only telephony services, as both Ziggo and UPC offer free downloadable apps to use a growing number of Wi-Fi spots for voice calls. Whether or not UPC Netherlands, which is the local Liberty Global subsidiary, and Ziggo – the largest Dutch cableco – ever …

[Charlie Clark]

Blah, blah, blah

This has to be one of the worst written articles I've read for a while. Breathless, stream of consciousness style doesn't work very well for analysis.

Wifi is indeed pretty widespread in the Netherlands including free to use on most trains. But that still doesn't make it universally available.

Meanwhile, elsewhere the telcos are finally implementing real cuts in roaming charges. For example, it's now free for me to receive calls anywhere in the EU and other charges are approaching the same as when in Germany. Interestingly, these changes were introduced before the start of the holidays.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Blah, blah, blah

I found the article a bit difficult to read too. Just to be clear Belgium has got three main mobile operators: Proxiimus (owend by Belgacom but now Belgacom is being re branded as Proximus), Mobistar and Base. To complicate matters Base used to be Orange but... anyway that's old news.

Proximus/Belgacom push you to share some bandwidth on your ADSL router which than means you can use anyone else's WiFi, if they've signed up too. In effect I can find a WiFi signal almost anywhere in town.

That's fine for a bit of surfing but the signal isn't that strong and I often see my phone signing in and out which means that calling via Sjype, for example, is difficult unless I find a position where the signal is strong and no-one else is competing for the bandwidth.

The next problem is if I'm in an area with few houses or long gardens or .I'm moving even if that's just walking. WiFi VOIP is useless then, in my experience.

I don't think it'll be a serious competitor to voice calls for some time yet.

[Stuart 22]

Crikey, VOIP on a mobile! Whatever next?

Android comes with optional VOIP phoning built in. I presume the iPhone does too. I just enter my Sipgate details when I set my phone up and there it is right alongside my MVNO when I want to make any call.

Will there be an App for switching the thing on soon?

[Caaaptaaaain kick arse]

upptalk (anndroid app)

Does similar in UK

[Vic]

This is news?

As Stuart says above, SIP clients have been around for years.

There are many low-cost SIP providers[1], such as SipGate mentioned above.

Once you've got a netwoprk connection, SIP really doesn't care what type it might be.

Vic.

[1] Including me, actually. No, I'm not looking to take you on as a new customer, thanks.

[hugo tyson]

Isn't this a...

...Rabbit phone?

[Anonymous Coward]

And all of it in the clear..

This is a bit like moving people from I-have-to-tap-that-at-the-telco SMS to we-can-just-copy-it-from-our-US-servers WhatsApp - let's move them to something that is by default not protected at all.

No thanks.

[Kevin McMurtrie]

Authenticating on a congested AP, please stand by

T-Mobile phones have been able to fully function over WiFi for a while. It's nice that the phones keep working in the hotel in the middle of nowhere and inside steel buildings but the latency is usually awful. WiFi has always been about bandwidth, not real-time delivery.

[Fazal Majid]

How is this new?

People have been using Skype and other VoIP tools for over a decade and a half from WiFi hotspots. Skype will even let you log on to Boingo and pay for the access using Skype credits.

As for KPN, yes, it is one of the worst telcos in Europe, with rotting infrastructure and a disdain for customers seldom seen West of the former Iron Curtain.