Just two days after announcing an application for Apple’s iPhone and iPod touch, Skype has hit a roadblock. On Thursday, Deutsche Telekom, a German wireless provider, banned use of the application on the iPhone and said anyone caught using it will face a contract suspension.

Skype, owned by eBay, has more than 405 million registered users who communicate for free by voice, video calls, and instant messages.

Deutsche Telekom, which has exclusive rights to the iPhone in Germany

through its T-Mobile business, said iPhone contracts block Voice by World Wide Web Protocol (VoIP) calls, which Skype uses. The blocking has been in the contracts since 2007, spokesperson Alexander von Schmettow told the Associated Press.

Schmettow said using the iPhone application, which offers free Skype-to-Skype calls and fee-based calls to mobile devices and landlines, could slow down T-Mobile’s network.

Blatant Blocking

Skype’s legal counsel, Robert Miller, charged that Deutsche Telekom is […]

Orginal post by dhiram