ANALYSIS: Truphone wins injunction against T-Mobile on VoIP calls
A judge yesterday granted a mandatory injunction forcing T-Mobile (UK) to interconnect with Truphone, which provides a mobile VoIP service.
T -Mobile was instructed to stop blocking and begin routing calls to Truphone numbers by Monday 23rd July, prior to a full hearing later. This is the first instance of interim relief being awarded against a mobile network operator under the Competition Act.
James Tagg, Truphone's chief executive officer, said, "The injunction is good news not only for Truphone but for every company trying to develop internet-era services and for every consumer wanting freedom of choice and lower prices. We are determined to bring better-value mobile calls, text messages and other innovative services to mobile phone users, and it's right that we should not be prevented from doing so.
"To be granted interim relief means we successfully demonstrated that we have an arguable case to make at a full trial. We didn't want to go to court but we had no choice: T-Mobile was effectively preventing the launch of the Truphone service so we had to take urgent action."
You can hear Tagg's reaction (and quite a lot of traffic toutside the Royal Courts of Justice) here.
The case is revolving around T-Mobile's refusal to pay Truphone the level of termination fees it wants for calls originated on its network and terminated on Truphone's.
T-Mobile had argued in its submission to the hearing that it was willing to deal with Truphone, but not on the terms Truphone was demanding. It said if it agreed to to Truphone's terms, it would be liable to potentially excessive termination rates on Truphone's network. T-Mobile would face ad-hoc refunds from Truphone for amounts it had overcharged. Instead T-Mobile was seeking a direct contractual relationship with Truphone.
Truphone said that in fact its rates are not excessive, are in fact inthe mid range, and have been accepted by the other players in the market. Truphone wants about 6p (six pence) per minute, which is a consolidated rate for calls it has to route either to its phones which are within WiFi range, or onto the GSM macro network.
In fact T-Mobile had made an offer of 0.21p per minute to Truphone, which Truphone thought was too low, but was willing to accept, under protest, to gain interim relief. Having accepted the terms, whilst reserving the right to go through Ofcom's dispute resultion procedure, Truphone alleged that T-Mobile then still refused to "turn on" its numbers.T-Mobile "disputes" this version of events, saying that T-Mobile's retention of the right to object constituted a counter offer.
The judge told Truphone it has until the end of this week to file papers for the full proceedings, and Truphone has said it will do so. Although Truphone has not gone to Ofcom yet, it may still be that Ofcom gets involved before the case comes to a full conclusion, a spokesperson said. T-Mobile has said that Truphone's unwillingness to get Ofcom involved is a sign of the weakness of its case. Truphone said it is merely a matter of timing, and that court proceedings would work much quicker than an Ofcom determination.