01 May 2007

Vodafone reacts to N95 criticism

VODAFONE has reacted to criticism of its overseas arms by reinstating the ability of contracted Nokia N95 phones to make calls over the Internet.

The company in Australia says it will not follow a practice in some countries including the UK of gelding the N95's embedded capacity to make what are called VOIP calls using the phone's wi-fi capacity. Third-party suppliers of VOIP services overseas were able to offer software to get around the restriction anyway.

A Vodafone Australia spokesman said it had decided to offer Nokia's Australia version of its N95 with all its functions activated. This included the embedded VOIP service not made available on N95's sold to Vodafone customers in the UK.

Vodafone was not the only provider accused of switching off phone functions. Orange was accused of the same.But the move overseas was seen as vandalizing new technology that allowed users to access services offered by competitors.

Orange and Vodafone in the UK however said they disabled VOIP because they hadn't fully tested its capabilities.Optus, 3, Vodafone, and Orange typically sell their customers discounted versions of phones locked to their networks.

They argue it would be economic suicide to provide contract customers with phones they could easily use on competitors' networks before they were paid off. Telco-branded phones also can include software that steers customers to extra services offered by the provider such as internet retail sites offering video, MP3 and ring tone downloads.

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