WiFi Calling

In an interesting lawsuit, VoIP-Pal, a patent holding company brought suit against AT&T, T-Mobile, Verizon, and Deutsche Telekom for now allow customers an option to use WiFi calling and WiFi texting. Of course, anybody with a smartphone can make a WiFi call across their phone’s data connection, and the lawsuit is really a complaint that the cellular companies are forcing customers to pay for a traditional voice and texting plan when customers only want to buy a bare broadband connection. The company has filed multiple suits, including a class-action lawsuit that alleges that the big carriers are squelching a nascent WiFi calling industry. The allegation with the most legs is that cellular carriers are forcing a bundle on customers that includes data, voice, and texting. I assume that the large majority of customers want that bundle so that when they are out of range of WiFi networks they can still complete texts and voice calls. But there are probably a significant number of people who mostly use their phones at home, work, and other places with WiFi connections who would prefer to save money and unbundle the traditional cellular package.