Reports of VoIP's death premature

RESPONDING TO to recent allegations aired by the INQ that free Internet telephony calls aren't possible on the very latest N95 handset from Nokia, Gerry O'Prey - CEO with WiFiMobile - has crushed such rumours.

He demonstrated live to the INQ that his own company's product works perfectly well on that particular Nokia mobile phone.

This move follows acknowledgments from both Orange and Vodafone that they have deliberately disabled the standard Nokia 'Internet Telephony' capability within the Nokia N95s they ship to contract customers.

Such a move does, however, leave a gaping hole with how some VoIP/Internet telephony applications for Nokia handsets have been written.

For example, Truphone's rival software relies entirely on the standard Nokia VoIP client software stack being installed by Nokia as a factory pre-set. When it's missing, Truphone's software simply won't function - something which the INQ has previously reported here.

By contrast, WiFi Mobile's software gets around the Nokia factory pre-set disablement by supplying its own SIP (Presence) software stack.

According to WiFiMobile's O'Prey, ""It's unfair to blame Orange and Vodafone for VoIP telephony not working in the N95. Our VoIP solution works very easily and we can demonstrate that to anybody who bothers to download it from our web site."

Indeed, WiFi Mobile's offering isn't the only piece of software to get around this deliberate disablement of the standard Internet Telephony function within Nokia handsets. Software house Fring, for instance, supplies another suitable VoIP software client.

In a statement concerning the N95 disablement, Vodafone has stated that it believes that, "VoIP over mobile is not yet a mature service proposition, doesn't have guaranteed quality of service, and does not provide the customer experience demanded of any service we launch.

This service would require in-depth testing, a solid end-to-end customer experience, billing integration and customer service support which is currently not available.

There is a misleading perception that VoIP services are 'free'. This is, however, not the case when it comes to using VoIP over mobile where customers will need to use data connectivity to establish a service."

Significantly not only did O'Prey demonstrate his VoIP/Internet telephony application working very happily over a WiFi connexion (which the N95 supports), he also showed VoIP/Telephony working well over a standard 3G data link via Vodaphone. µ

L'INQ VoIP functionality in N95 disabled