The executive branch of the European Union is investigating whether wireless carriers there are illegally blocking VoIP calls from being carried over their networks. You know you can’t use Skype-like applications over 3G using your iPhone? If the Commission gets its way, that practice would end, one would assume.
It’s like this: the European Commission doesn’t like it when companies screw you, the consumer, over. So since it suspects, apparently, that the wireless carriers are, in fact, screwing you, it’s launched the investigation. The Commission sent a questionnaire to several unknown wireless carriers asking them a whole host of questions about what “tools” they use to manage their network, including the restriction of VoIP.
And why are mobile carriers so fearful of the likes of Skype running on their network? They’re afraid that consumers will exclusively use VoIP instead of the regular voice network to make calls.
In any event, carriers wouldn’t be allowed to do that anyway, actively blocking you from using VoIP.
Hell hath no fury like a Brussels bureaucrat scorned.