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Costa Rica May Criminalize VoIP
chia_monkey writes "Here's an interesting little tidbit about the 'free' Internet. Seems Costa Rica may make it a crime to make Internet-based phone calls. It would be a shame if this sets a precedent of setting legistlation that would seriously stunt the growth of these emerging technologies that should be making communication cheaper and easier, not harder and illegal."
In Antigua it's already illegal. Cable and Wireless pushed through a law making it illegal. When you sign up for ISP service, you have to agree not to do it, along with the usual AUP.
Min
On the whole, I find that I prefer Slashdot posts to twitter ones because I don't get limited to 140 chars before
This is such an ignorant comment. I AM A COSTA RICAN citizen, and I worked there for Acer and Intel before moving to Europe. I know about the state of technological penetration in the country and what qwasty says here is just a bunch of uninformed facts. DSL at home??? Tell that to ALL of my friends there who have been trying for years to even get a decent ISDN connection at home. DSL is not even available to the general public yet. The so called "Advanced Internet" project has been delayed for 3 years now and it is not until last week, that the Costa Rican Institute of Electricity (ICE in Spanish) finished installing the routers to start selling DSL access at prices that are prohibitive to the general population. They will start offering a 128/64 Kbps line for $28/month and YES that is a 128/64Kbps line for that price. The Costa Rica you describe does not sound like the same place where I was born and raised and where I lived for 30 years of my life and which I visited again just recently. Efficient economy and public transportation? REALLY? Please tell me where did you travel in the country so I can move there. I won't even reply to the business ownership stupidity or to the prostitution bit. Now, about the reason for this move by the ICE. The only reason behind this is that Costa Rican telecommunications are a state monopoly (yes, a la MS) and what the ICE is trying to do is either define VoIP as a value-added service and regulate it or have it declared illegal. If you are going to post half-assed information, at least try to be objective about it. For those who can read Spanish, here is an article from La Nacion Costa Rica's largest newspaper, describing the situation. Basically, all they are afraid of is losing the profit from international phone calls, and because all telecommunications use public infrastructure, they would like to be able to regulate it or control it completely. Anyway, please do some research or reading before you post such crap. Better yet, take a plane and go to Costa Rica for real. It might enlighten you a bit.