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?"

Comments

In Canada

[Pig Hogger]

Here, in Canada, it is totally free; as there is no single federal telecom monopoly and those are mostly private companies, the issue of monopoly is moot.

Hopefully, this situation will help to drive the Bell Telephone Company of Canada into the ground, which could be sooner than we think as it was not bought by the Ontario Teacher's Fund.

Re:In Canada

[MrNaz]

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

Legal vs Allowed

[Renraku]

VoIP is legal here in the United States.

But I don't know how much longer it'll be allowed to live by the ISPs.

We're kind of on a roller coaster ride debate as to whether or not ISPs should be able to decide what data goes over their lines. They want to be able to charge more for certain types of data (and you can bet your ass that data that competes with another wing of their business will be pretty damn expensive).

When Bush was in office, I wouldn't have even blinked in surprise if I were told suddenly the ISPs decided that all YouTube traffic is now set to 14.4k speeds unless you pay more for it, but now that Obama's in office, its actually a debate rather than a eventuality.

Re:Legal vs Allowed

[MrNaz]

now that Obama's in office, its actually a debate rather than a eventuality

If you think the big lobby groups are any less powerful just because of a change in party or person in the president's chair then you're deluding yourself.

RIAA will continue to run around like a bull in a china shop, patent trolls will continue to destroy innovation by patent stockpiling and dragnetting, the armed forces will continue to rape and pillage those who are unable to defend themselves and our privacy and freedoms both online and in the real world will continue to be barraged from all sides.

The real enemies of society are the interests represented by the powerful lobby groups. Not some guy sitting in an oval office.

Re:Legal vs Allowed

[palegray.net]

the armed forces will continue to rape and pillage those who are unable to defend themselves

I was with you right up to that point. Speaking as a person who has served in the Navy, with lots of friends in the Army and Marine Corps, I can say with a high degree of confidence that you are an idiot. How's that armchair of yours? Comfy?

Re:Legal vs Allowed

[TehDuffman]

the armed forces will continue to rape and pillage those who are unable to defend themselves

I would have modded you up except for this point. The Armed Forces of the US are like any group, you put a bunch (hundred of thousands) of 18 - 23 year olds in a area with extreme stress and extreme power mistakes happen but... rape and pillage I would say you have no idea what you are talking about and may want to learn/read instead of writing completely ignorant statements.

Also the military establishment before OIF was not pro-invasion, they did the best with the horrible leadership from the civilian leadership at the DOD and above. Had OIF planning been in control of the the military there likely would have actually been an occupation plan and no need for a surge because a higher amount of troops would have already been on deck.

Re:Legal vs Allowed

[drinkypoo]

I was with you right up to that point. Speaking as a person who has served in the Navy, with lots of friends in the Army and Marine Corps, I can say with a high degree of confidence that you are an idiot. How's that armchair of yours? Comfy?

I've had to sit and listen to too many soldiers tell me stories about rape to believe your anecdote. They invariably are a story of grief and remorse about how they didn't stop someone else from doing it. When you add to that that the published stats for rape of female military inductees in the Navy is over 25% - while rape statistics are nearly always under-reported, and rape allegations are almost never false although other kinds of abuse are potentially over-reported.

The simple truth is that occupying militaries pretty much always commit rape on a broad scale, and ours is no exception, nor has it ever been. In addition, the use of prostitutes who were forced into the business in response to the devastation of the local economy due to war can only be seen as a kind of rape, and that is very much SOP for all soldiers anywhere, making war in any time and any place.

Re:Legal vs Allowed

[bartwol]

I never served...a fact of which I am not proud.

I fully agree with your point, brief and unexplained though it may be.

The parent's sweeping [mis]characterization of military personnel reflects a kind of bigotry that is common and, in many circles, acceptable here in the U.S. (and elsewhere). And yet, his ugly slur is no more correct than one he might make about African Americans or any other broadly defined population. Alas, such broad sweeping bigotry lives in the hearts of most people, and is only mitigated by their learned sensitivity ("forgiveness") to particular sub-classes.

Anyway, thanks for saying it the way I felt about it.

Re:Legal vs Allowed

[Hatta]

rape allegations are almost never false

How exactly do you determine this? Most rape cases are complete "he said, she said" cases. Given that in 25% of the rape cases where DNA evidence is available the main suspect is exonerated, I'd say your "almost never" is completely wrong. And that's not even counting cases where 1) no DNA evidence is available or 2) consensual sex is followed by a cry of rape.

In Australia its legal

[jonwil]

And we have regulators who would go after any telco who tried to block it.
In fact, many major ISPs are now offering VoIP as part of your Internet connection

If the government tried to ban VoIP in this country, they wouldn't survive the next election.

Maybe thats the problem for people in countries in Latin America and Africa and elsewhere where telephone and Internet service is controlled by state-run/state-backed monopolies. Maybe the people in these countries need to kick the government out (although that assumes that there is a government running the country and not a military general and an army with orders to shoot anyone who has such unclean thoughts as "lets kick the government out" or "lets fight the state-run telco")

Re:In Australia its legal

[timmarhy]

our monopoly telco which was previously government owned, telstra, would LOVE to block VOIP. they aren't in the VOIP business yet, they are waiting for everyone to invest heavily in it then they will drop conventional landline calls to the same level, decimating the competition.

Re:In Australia its legal

[rdnetto]

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.

Re:In Australia its legal

[AHuxley]

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

Re:Past tense of "arise" is "arose"

[spire3661]

LOTS of women. I know being here on slashdot you might have forgotten the concept that women exist.

Only in monopoly markets

[jrumney]

In most of the Western world, Governments decided in the 1980's and 1990's that competition was good for the consumer, and government telecommunications monopolies no longer exist. In those countries, VoIP is just seen as a natural evolution of healthy competition, and though individual operators might try to make life difficult for independent VoIP operators, and lobby for regulations to be imposed based on E911 (ie the ability of emergency services to find), there is no government support for banning healthy competition.

In markets where there is still a government backed monopoly, there might be more inclination to protect that monopoly, but ultimately it is not good for the consumer or the overall economy to protect a dying technology and business model.

VoIP in Latin America

[Anonymous Coward]

Residential User:
Mexico - Illegal if you don't buy from one of the Telmex concessionaires.
Nicaragua - Illegal. You go to jail for it.
Honduras - Illegal. Jail.
Costa Rica - Illegal. Fine.
Dominican Republic - Illegal. Jail.
Panama - Legal. Do whatever you want.
Colombia - Illegal. They disconnect your Internet line if they catch it.
Venezuela - Legal. Chaves Monopoly.
Brazil - Legal. Plenty of providers.
Argentina - Legal. Plenty of providers.
Chile - Legal. Plenty of providers.

Termination (to leak, connect a VoIP gateway to phone lines or ISDN lines and provide termination to guys like Arbinet):

Mexico: Illegal. Jail.
Nicaragua: Illegal. Fine and Jail.
Costa Rica: Illegal. Fine and Jail.
Honduras: Illegal. Fine and Jail.
Colombia: Illegal. Fine.
Dominican Republic: Illegal. Fine and Jail.
Venezuela: Illegal. Fine and Jail (and some worse stuff...)
Brazil: Illegal. Fine and Jail (They just closed a huge leak there with 12 Cisco 5350s. Guys got fined in 2 million bucks)
Argentina: Legal. You may get problems with your ISP.
Rest: I don't know.

Re:VoIP in Latin America

[johannesg]

I'm utterly amazed that in some countries you can apparently go to jail for using a certain type of telephone...

Deep packet inspection used for blocking VoIP

[yahyamf]

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.

Caribbean

[masonc]

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.