VoIP-Pal Misunderstands Its Suit, Big 3 Carriers Tell Court
VoIP-Pal "does not understand the claims it has tried to plead," wireless companies said in a reply filed Friday with the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia (case 1:24-cv-03051). The company is suing AT&T, Verizon and T-Mobile for using their market dominance to withhold unbundled voice-over-Wi-Fi calling and texting from consumers (see 2410300004).
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In supporting their motion to dismiss, the carriers said VoIP-Pal's arguments disprove its conspiracy allegation by establishing that the economic interest of each of the Big Three is in providing Wi-Fi calling so they could capture a share of the alleged $209.5 billion in infrastructure savings. While VoIP-Pal argued that the carriers are defrauding their cellular customers by saying Wi-Fi calling comes at "no additional charge," it's clear that there's a charge for cellular services and that Wi-Fi calling doesn't come with an additional cost.
In its opposition to the motion to dismiss last month, VoIP-Pal said the wireless carriers exploit market power to compel consumers to buy unwanted cellular services as the price of accessing Wi-Fi calling, and they're trying to elevate a handful of typographical slips into an argument about a dispositive flaw in VoIP-Pal's case. It said the carriers' argument that they lack market power in Wi-Fi calling because it's free "is both misleading and irrelevant," VoIP-Pal said.