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VoIP Now Technically Illegal In China

Posted by timothy on from the hush-it's-just-wise-regulation dept.

ironfrost writes "A recent ruling by China's Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) has declared that VoIP services are illegal, except for the ones operated by state-owned telecom operators China Telecom and China Unicom. According to the article, 'the decision is expected to make Skype, UUCall and other similar services unavailable in China,' and is widely seen as a way to protect the traditional telecom operators' profits. Here's a more in-depth story in Chinese (Google Translate version)."

2 of 181 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Like everything else illegal in China... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    And there will be ridiculously over-the-top punishments to make examples of individuals who are "disturbing social order".

    http://politics.slashdot.org/story/10/11/18/1832240/A-Single-Re-Tweet-Lands-Chinese-Woman-in-Labor-Camp

  2. Re:Wow... by pclminion · · Score: 5, Interesting

    That's a very capitalistic way of viewing it... My first thought is that it makes it a lot easier for the Chinese government to be able to tap calls. It's easier to tap when you don't allow private infrastructure to exist.