T-Mobile Germany is to lift its ban on the use of VoIP services such as Skype over its network and will instead require customers to pay a surcharge for the service. A spokesman at the Deutsche Telekom-owned operator said it would charge customers a fee starting at EUR9.95 a month, reports Dow Jones Newswires. The spokesman said the charge was necessary to cover the “significant investment” required to enable VoIP over its network, but did not provide further details. To date, accessing mobile VoIP applications over T-Mobile Germany’s network had meant that customers were in breach of contract, a policy that has angered many VoIP proponents.

Mobile VoIP has taken off recently via applications made available for smartphones such as the Apple iPhone and the Google G1, which are both offered by T-Mobile in Germany. The Skype iPhone software, which was made available via Apple’s App Store in late March, recorded over 2 million downloads in its first two weeks of availability, though it is currently limited to working over Wi-Fi rather than mobile networks. However, the launch of such software has been less well received by mobile operators, which fear that VoIP traffic could cannibalise their core voice revenues, prompting some (most notably T-Mobile) to prohibit VoIP use over their networks. According to Dow Jones Newswires, T-Mobile rival Vodafone Germany is also considering levying a surcharge on VoIP users.