iPhone VoIP Not Banned in Germany
I always had a thing for history when I was growing up.
Whether it was the fact that I was great at memorizing countless pointless facts or that I wanted to be the one who, “didn’t let history repeat itself” I am not sure, but one thing that will always stick in my mind is something one of my history professors told me:
Government was created to protect the stupid.
Today Tom Keating pointed to a court ruling in Germany that has resulted in the inability for Mobile VoIP service provider sipgate to advertise their service for the iPhone in Germany. However sensational the title, the reality is the ruling is more about the banning of an unoffical iPhone VoIP application - not the full fledged banning of VoIP on the iPhone. Here’s a snippet:
“The Higher Regional Court (OLG) of Hamburg has now issued a preliminary injunction barring us from advertising and distributing the software.”
Contrary to Tom’s outrage, the judgement makes sense to me.
First off, sipgate is not an offical Mobile VoIP application for the iPhone and in order to use the sipgate service a user does have to break the terms and conditions of their contract with T-Mobile. In general, I am not a fan of jailbreaking mobile phones. I am not a fan of breaking the rules to save a few bucks and I am certainly not a fan of companies who are trying to profit by breaking the rules.
Having been around the cellular and VoIP worlds for over a decade now, I can tell you that an overwhemling majority of the population will have an epic fail on their hands when attempting to jailbreak their iPhone in order to use the sipgate application. Services such as this also have the potential to give the Mobile VoIP industry a black eye - it only takes a few failed attempts for word to spread that “Mobile VoIP sucks.”
Remember, government was created to protect the stupid. This ruling is simply protecting the masses who are not smart enough to know they really should not jailbreak their iPhone. Besides, Truphone and RF.com both give you VoIP on the iPhone without the need to break the terms and conditions - why not use those services?
September 11th, 2008 at 2:08 pm
>Remember, government was created to protect the stupid.
That’s news to me. Thought the government protects all people, smart, dumb, and otherwise. Government should protect people’s safety, especially dumb people that don’t know better.
But to say gov’t should infringe on people’s ability to “tinker” (jailbreak) their iPhones is ridiculous. It’s not criminally illegal to jailbreak an iPhone. Has nothing to do with the government or the courts. If T-Mobile wants to fine me for breaking their terms & conditions, they are within their rights. But they don’t have the right to run to the courts and demand 3rd party apps not sell their products.
September 11th, 2008 at 2:27 pm
@George:
I understand and respect your position; I was just using a blunt object to illicit a traumatizing point.
Do you think it would still be infringement if Apple was taking sipgate to court since technically the terms and conditions they broke were that of Apple as the OS hacked is owned by Apple?