Slashdot Mirror
VoIP Legal Status Worldwide?
Cigarra writes "There was much public debate going on during the last several months here in Paraguay, regarding the 'liberation of Internet,' that is, the lifting of the restriction on ISPs to connect directly to international carriers. Up until this week, they were forced to hire wholesale service from the State run telco, Copaco. During the last month, when the new regulation was almost ready, the real reason supporting the monopoly made it to the headlines: Copaco would fight for the monopoly, fearing VoIP based telephony. Finally, the regulator Conatel resolved today to end the monopoly, but a ruling on VoIP legal status was postponed for 'further study.' I guess this kind of 'problem' arose almost everywhere else in the world, so I ask the international slashdotters crowd: what is VoIP's legal status in your country / state / region? How well did incumbent telcos adapt to it, and overall, just how disruptive was this technology to established operators?"
South Africa had banned VoIP technology until recently. There's lots of information in this 2001 article:
http://www.itweb.co.za/sections/telecoms/2001/0103271307.asp?A=VPN&S=VPN&T=Section&O=SBR
I hate printers.
In Dubai in the UAE as well as in most Gulf countries, VoIP is completely illegal, and the state run telcos use DPI technology to block it. This adds about 200ms of latency to *all* packets which the telcos think is an acceptable tradeoff to preserve their monopoly revenue.
In the C&W controlled monopoly islands of the english speaking Caribbean, VOIP was always a gray area. Anyone wanting to offer VOIP services required a telco license and C&W would not sell them an internet connection, but they did not block VOIP use by users. The Governments did not have any real stance on the issue as they did not understand it. Eventually, C&W accepted the inevitable and offered their own service, known as NetSpeak, but only to private users and only tied to a hardware device.
There is a large move to VOIP by companies and now I am seeing quasi-governmental pan-caribbean agencies implementing IP PBX installations using Open Source PBX equipment. The last bastion of TDM is the hotels and I think a shift to VOIP is inevitable there also.
The incumbent Telco will likely move to entertainment and content as long distance revenue dwindles and they are stuck with the losses of maintaining low return infrastructure. They are already slimming down operations, laying off staff and becoming a sales driven company rather than an engineering company.
VOIP will remain legal and radically change the Caribbean, telcos will become content providers and TDM will fade into the past.
CM www.cometenergysystems.com Blog: http://caribbeanrenewable.blogspot.com/
In fact, many major ISPs are now offering VoIP as part of your Internet connection.
Quite a few actually give you an incentive to adopt it. E.g. My ISP, iiNet, literally doubled my already generous quota if I bundled VOIP with my connection. That was actually the only reason we got VOIP at first - it was only later that we realised how much cheaper it was.
Also, take a look at this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VOIP#Legal_Issues.
Most human behaviour can be explained in terms of identity.
Voip is fine in Australia, just select your ISP with great care and read the fine print re excess data costs.
Telstra (big bad Australian "Bell") enjoys offering low capped plans with over use charged at A$150/gb, counting uploads and downloads.
As the joke goes:
"New computer - $1200
Desk for the computer - $250
Bigpond 100Mps 200mb Cable Plan - $39.95
Using your 200mb quota + 2GB extra at $150 a gig doing VoIP - Priceless"
Telstra controls RIMs (Remote Integrated Multiplexer ~ digital loop carrier), toys with exchange rack space and does all it can to contain other ISP's.
Another fun aspect of Voip was this:
http://apcmag.com/bigpond_blocking_voip_on_new_modem.htm
Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"