Nokia Removes VoIP from New N-Series Phones

We loved Nokia for putting WiFi capabilities and VoIP functionality on their phones – but mobile carriers weren’t too happy about these new developments. Obviously people would rather make long-distance calls using VoIP rather than pay huge amounts of money to their carrier, which led to the rise of mobile VoIP softwares like Gizmo Project, Fring, and Truphone. Now it seems as if Nokia is kowtowing to the mobile carriers. The newest phones in the N-series, the N78 and N96, are no longer VoIP compatible. The new phones in the E-series, however, still have VoIP functionality since this is pretty much the only feature that makes users choose an E-series device over something like a Blackberry.

I think closing off the VoIP option was a bad move, especially since Nokia claimed to be open-source friendly. Instead of giving in to the carriers, Nokia should have remained flexible with their features because this is the only way they can out-innovate all their competitors.