While in many countries the use of VoIP is perfectly OK, in Germany one can't use mobile internet or WLAN hotspots for internet-based voice- or video calls. The reason for the decision is purely economical, as network operators profit much less from web-based voice transfer, so T-Mobile Germany is willing to sell the Nokia N97 flagship only without Skype, even though this has been the very first handset in the Nokia-Skype cooperation. At the same time spokespersons for Vodafone and T-Mobile Germany have confirmed that they are reconsidering their VoIP strategy and it is possible that later on they will have such packages that offer VoIP services.
The spokesperson for T-Mobile has also emphasized that although the company policy won't allow the use of VoIP, they don't consider the pre-installed Skype client on Nokia N97 a good idea as that could highly influence customers about what do they use, so it's much better to leave them the coice of their preferred client. Still, research shows that users prefer much more to use such pre-installed apps instead of downloading new ones.
Translated by Szaszati
