Should Mobile Carriers Ban Wireless VoIP?

In a slowly-developing debate between carrier and customer, the battle of allowing (or blocking) VoIP-related traffic on mobile networks is finally reaching a boil. With the recent news of T-Mobile blocking VoIP on their European mobile networks, customers are outraged, leaving a carrier with a difficult decision to make: upgrade their network, or start shedding customers. Perhaps this decision will come easier for carriers such as T-Mobile, with a newly-leaked story from the European Union (EU) that mentions potential new regulations stipulating that wireless carriers must support VoIP services such as Skype and Google Voice on their respective networks. But this argument is all overseas, you say? With VoIP-related services on the exponential rise on mobile networks in the US as well, look for an upcoming debate here. The problem comes down to network scalability and availability of bandwidth. Delivering such media-rich traffic to mobile devices is complicated and costly, requiring large upgrades of almost every aspect of a mobile network platform. Even so-called “3G” or “EVDO” networks have some difficulty supporting VoIP applications, which require time-centric, bi-directional streaming connections. Some, or even most mobile networks transmit data in bursts to allow their technologies to scale to thousands of users. With thousands of real-time connections to services that require high-bandwidth and low-latency connections, the data networks of mobile providers can easily become flooded. What are your thoughts on this growing issue as network operators and end-users? Should wireless carriers allow such traffic? Why or why not?