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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."
This just seems so wrong : of all central american countries, Costa Rica is the only one without a confusing bloddy story, why would they start now ?
Trolling using another account since 2005.
from socialism gone wrong... instead of developing state owned infrastructure to benefit society, develop state owned monopolies to fleece society.
at least some verizon asshat didn't write that law. i'll take politicians writing stupid laws over corporate fascists any day.
But hey, I'm not worried - I still have an acoustic modem somewhere in my house...
Might as well throw people in jail for talking. hell lets ban all communication while we are at it. I mean heaven forbid I write a note to someone and hand it to them instead of letting a middle man make money off of it.
Crawl This - http://darkry.net/test/test.php
That's the key to all this. They want it to be illegal because the state might lose money.
it's easy: since the telephone co is owned/controlled by the state, voip is *stealing* from the state.
similar to states that tax alcohol and it's a crime to bring (over a very limited qty) it into the state from other states.
eric
if they have a monopoly, why not just block it at the first router?
10 ?"Hello World" life was simple then
Yes, in fact it is much more democratic than most "occidental countries" it is somewhat of a centralized power system, but still people are ELECTED there evry 4 years. Also, I should mention that the state has no military forces, only police and security forces for internal security. What an ignorant post you made.
i live in kentucky. more than a fair amount of drinking alcohol is fermented, brewed, and/or distilled here.
eric
There's probably nothing to get excited about here. The Costa Ricans aren't any stupider than anyone else in the world. The local phone monopoly just wants to get some attention, which will set the stage for whatever deal finally comes out of the governing process. Very likely VoIP won't be criminalized in Costa Rica. It will probably have fees attached to it. The only question will be how much these fees are likely to be. I would guess they will be high enough to protect the phone monopoly. Just the usual politics...
To the making of books there is no end, so let's get started
It's Costa Rica for crying out loud. They're not capable of setting a global economic precedent except for maybe the price of coffee.
-S
--- What parts of "shall make no law", "shall not be infringed", and "shall not be violated" don't you understand?
The only difference between this and what's going on in the US, is in this case, it's a state-controlled monopoly and in the US it's the few remaining Baby Bells doing the same with trying to ban municipal wi-fi.
Unfortunately, it's all about the telecom industry, both in the US, and abroad, trying to consolidate power, and shut out open access, whether it's data or voice.
You'd think they'd have learned something from that about monopolies.
One line blog. I hear that they're called Twitters now.
Considering as how it's a state-run telecom, I don't really see where your sarcasm is going. :p
I mean, isn't a state-run anything more socialist than capitalist, despite the fact that it's still working for money?
I've been to Costa Rica four or five times to visit friends. When I was there on my honeymoon fives years back, there were big protests because the government was about to hand the phone system over to the president's brother-in-law - or something like that.
At any rate, the Costa Rican political system tends to be pretty corrupt in the sense that those in power tend to give big favors to their friends in family. I'll bet something like this is going on.
Ha, ha! Nobody ever says Italy.
...when phone and cable companies in US are trying to make municipal broadband development. While they're quite as brazen as their Costa Rican brothers, they certainly are trying just as hard.
In Soviet Russia, I ruled you
In keeping with tradition I did not RTFA. However, the article summary states "internet based phone calls," so I think your ludicrous situations where you looked at several literal, but unused, meanings of "voice over ip" are irrelevant. This is obviously a power grab by whatever telco companies/monopoly exists in Costa Rica. I'm not at all sure how you jumped to making "all packetized transfer of voice data illegal - BYE BYE GPRS."
Furthermore, there is no such thing as unbiased. I believe that the 'unbiased technical people' you would have liked to have been consulted would actually have been biased towards unregulated VoIP. Just because you agree with them doesn't mean that they're unbiased.
ICE is the name of the only telco in Costa Rica.
...
... on the other hand: I just tunnel it to my server on an unusual port as it was streaming whatever, and they can come and look really close and still see nothing :)
They provide internet, phone landline and cell.
Just to give an idea, GSM network just ran out of free lines, waiting period for a landline in suburban (not off the grid) areas is 6+ months.
I am renting an office to have net, because at my place there is no landline, nor 2-way cable (so you need a modem with dial up and cable, the latter DL the phone for upstream comms)
Back to the topic: Costa Rica has ONLINE casinos, sportsbooks, bingo halls, and they ALL use VOIP.
Call centers use VOIP.
If you make an emergency call int he states and do not speek english, there is a chance, that the call is directed here to a translator OVER VOIP.
I use VOIP to talk to good ol' europe, since the minute rate is $1 + to e.g. Hungary, and almost 2$ the other way.
ICE people do not like to work. They like to strike, and every time they mention privatizing the company, they go to the street and there is no service (there is phone, but no customer service, so if a line breaks or whatever pain you have, you are fsckd)
Well but hey, there is no snowstorms here, just occasional quakes
Ahm why they won't put it thru? The casino industry gives 1000s of jobs to students, so do other companyes who USE VOIP.
I am not worried
The entire discussion on Slashdot has centered around a substantial misreading of the article.
The real point of the article is that the Costa Rican national telephone company wants VOIP regulated as a service, like the other phone lines are. We are having the same debate in the United States. The phone company here was originally designed as a monopoly, and universal service meant subsidies. Find a way around the monopoly, and there's no way to fund the subsidies. So you either regulate it enough to collect taxes or do away with the phone service in rural areas (which is often the basis of internet service in those areas as well.)
Costa Rica has similar regulatory issues. So they're in the phase of "Hey, this ought to be regulated." The regulations are completely undefined as yet, so some reporter speculates that they could in some ludicrous limit case result in criminalizing VOIP and then mentions it in the headline, the lead line, and then precisely once in the actual body of the article.
Whereupon Slashdot copies the headline, and focuses the summary on it. Read into the rest of the article and you might find that most of the time when the Slashdot response to an article is "How could anybody be so incredibly stupid?" the answer is usually, "They're not, they've just been taken out of context."
It may well be that any regulation of VOIP is a bad idea, that the Internet wants to be free, and if it outcompetes the old regime then we'll have to come up with a new plan. In Costa Rica's case, if they lose too much tax money from POTS to VOIP, they'll have to raise taxes elsewhere. Perhaps they'd raise a sales tax or income tax. But talk of criminalizing VOIP strikes me as a hysterical response to a subject that requires actual thought.
Imagine taking this approach 100 years ago. Oceanliners would push for legislation outlawing transoceanic aircraft. Horse trainers would push to abolish internal combustion engines. Theatrical companies would go after movie theaters. And the parcel services would try to eliminate telegraphs.
So, third world is effectively now an economic designation, and no longer has anything to do with the cold war.
Yes, but the original post said (paraphrased) "Costa Rica has only been a first world country for 10 years". I guess my problem isn't so much that Third world = poor to most people, but that people have taken the First/Second/Third trichotomy (is that a word?) and forced a rich/poor dichotomy on top of it. If first = rich and third = poor.. where did second go? It just doesn't make sense, and really, it's stupid PC crap. If we all have in our heads that third world = poor, just fucking say poor.
digital != packet based. GSM is circuit switched. GPRS is run over GSM however.
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WHO ATE MY BREAKFAST PANTS?
I simply cannot believe that a self-proclaimed "non-ignorant" would willingly make these statements and claims. Either you are trolling or having fun here, I don't know which. Racsa DOES NOT offer DSL yet to the general public. They ran, or wanted to run, a pilot project a while back to test it. I know this because a relative of mine works at ICE and told me this. The article from La Nacion says, at the bottom of the page that: "The exminister of Science and Technology (2000-2002) Guy de Theramond, one of the main pioneers (of the Advanced Internet Project) said yesterday that he is pleased with the work done at the heart of the network and that 'we only have to wait for DSL'". So I really do not know how you managed to get it from RACSA when they are still waiting for it. What you may be talking about is cable access provided by Amnet, which is a totally different thing. Maybe you got your facts wrong there. About your economic facts, $12 a day equals $240 a month which, according to today's exchange rate is 111825,60 Costa Rican colones, not counting social security deductions and the like. I find it hard to believe that people can "make" it back home with that, but then again, it depends on what you define by "making" it. It seems to me from your original message, that making it for you means affording vacations to the US, buying a home and a car and other similar luxuries. I find it extremely hard to believe that; given for example that my brother who is an attorney and makes much more than $12/day has to think twice about it before paying for things you claim people do there on a regular basis, such as taking vacations to the US, or buying cars or carrying laptops and cellphones. I actually met people who carried toy cellphones just to look as if they had one, but I disgress here.... I know of people who make over 1 million Costa Rican colones a month (roughly $3000) and only go with their families to the US once or at most twice a year. Now talk about doing that with only $240 a month. I do not resent your comments, I just find it annoying that you post factoids and generalize them to apply them to a reality which is alien to you, but then again, that is a typical american attitude. Can't blame you for that. Oh, and about the mopping thing, I've seen that done to american citizens in the US as well by their fellow americans, so I do not know who should be more resentful.