Well said Marc-Oliver Kalis
Further to my posting last Thursday - It is invidious that T-Mobile thinks it can simply block calls to Truephone's numbers and get away with it.
I agree with everyting Marc-Oliver Kalis said in his posting - and If I were a citizen of his country and having 'excused boots status’ for making comments about fellow citizens, I think I would have launched a far more blistering attack on those erstwhile T-Mobile people, who were so aptly referred to as: Bullies, Stupid and Arrogant - may I be allowed to add to his list just one more word - "Pompous".
Who the hell do these T-Mobile people think they are? Truephone is a fledgling operator, bringing new and innovative mobile services to the UK market. They (T-Mobile) are so 'puffed up' with their own self-importance that they have probably forgotten where they came from.
Yes, 10 years ago they were once a fledgling little 2G start-up outfit themselves, called "One2One" - struggling to get a foothold in the UK mobile market (along with the other new kid on the block, Orange). Back then, the UK mobile market was dominated by Vodafone and BT Cellnet (now O2) - and lest the T-Mobile macho management should forget – they (one of the little fledglings) were protected by ‘Auntie Oftel’, through controls, which were imposed on the dominant MNOs (BT Cellnet and Vodafone).
These controls limited the amount BT Cellnet and Vodafone could charge for calls from landlines or other mobile networks. At the time when those controls were put into place, neither Orange nor One2One was regarded as a major player and neither was included in the regulation. But, about two years later (after having had a ‘period of grace’ to establish themselves and build a customer base), Orange and One2One were subjected to the same controls.
The T-Mobile macho management team really does need to re-visit its past and recognise that the position they now hold in the UK mobile market is due in no small part to the 'leg-up' they (and their predecessor One2One) were given by the UK regulator back in the late 1990’s.
Aside from the list of negative attributes mentioned earlier (i.e. bullying, management stupidity, arrogance and pompousness), it is so blatantly obvious that T-Mobile’s actions are based on fear and envy. Fear, because they see a bright new entrant coming to market with new and innovative services that they don’t have (and won’t have for many years). Envy, because Truephone’s network is effectively 4G and T-Mobile doesn’t have a hope in hell’s chance of getting 4G services running until well into the next decade.
All power to Truephone in their ‘David and Goliath’ battle.
All power to Ofcom for having the guts to issue an immediate order on T-Mobile to open Truephone’s numbers and to have them put in inclusive minutes bundles too. After all, Ofcom has no other choice - by the very nature of its unilateral action to cut off calls to Truephone, T-Mobile has committed a flagrant breach of EC interconnection regulations.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
