European Union regulators are looking into whether mobile phone operators who block customers from making inexpensive wireless calls over the Internet are breaking competition rules.
The European Commission, the EU antitrust authority, has sent questionnaires to phone companies asking what "tools" they use to "control, manage, block, slow down or otherwise restrict or filter" Internet-based voice calls.
The EU deadline for responding to the survey was Tuesday. The questionnaire, obtained by Bloomberg News, does not identify any companies.
Some mobile carriers have blocked services that use voice-over-Internet protocol, or VoIP, which allows users to make calls over the Web. Companies may be seeking to stop customers from accessing applications, like eBay's Skype, to defend voice revenue from the less expensive Internet services, Carolina Milanesi, research director for mobile devices at Gartner, the research company, said.
Gonzalo San Gil, PhD. on 08 Jan 13Alexandre Oliva Based on the widely-recognized and seldom-disrespected human rights to enjoy and memorize works of art one can access, and to grant and accept access to them, this article claims legitimate rights to preserve access to works, to convert works to different formats and media, to download and to upload works on the Internet, and to receive and to share works in P2P networks. The full enjoyment of these human rights amounts to self defense against the constant attacks to them.
