Sipgate One Is Being Discontinued

This translation was generated automatically.

After a long struggle, Sipgate is discontinuing Sipgate One, its virtual mobile number service similar to Google Voice. The Federal Post Office and the Post Ministry never played along. Google seems to have watched the drama and decided against launching Google Voice in Germany.

Farewell letter:

On the one hand, the product was simply boycotted by competitors. Calls and SMS messages to 01570 numbers, which we obtained from the now-insolvent Telogic, were regularly delivered unreliably by mobile operators. As we built a virtual mobile network to provide SIM cards for products such as “simquadrat” and “sipgate team”, several market participants put major obstacles in our way because of the supposedly malicious “sipgate one” product. Telekom Deutschland, for example, had no qualms about delaying interconnection and activation so long that it took 27 months before mobile numbers on our virtual network could be reached from the T-Mobile network.

On the other hand, the Federal Network Agency also worked hard to prevent a product like this. For years we have discussed the direct allocation of mobile numbers to Sipgate, so that we would not depend on third parties in the market. Sipgate may be able to obtain mobile numbers independently of SIM cards. But years of delay—and the prospect of allocation only after a lawsuit against the agency—are not the support we hoped for from a competition regulator. After this years-long charade, even Google seems to have abandoned plans to launch “Google Voice” in Germany.

The Federal Network Agency has also taken the position that a provider of a product like “sipgate one” should not be entitled to mobile termination fees. Phone companies pay these fees to one another to forward calls to particular numbers. This leaves services like Sipgate One unable to earn termination fees on incoming calls, while still having to pay when forwarding a call to another provider. Since Germany’s fee levels are also far higher than in other western European countries, it is unfortunately impossible in practice to offer a service like Sipgate One for free.