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Russian Telco MTS Bans Skype, Other VoIP Services
An anonymous reader writes "MTS, one of the three largest mobile carriers in Russia, have been buying up smaller cable TV and Internet providers across the country, and besides the GSM/3G cellphone service they now also offer cable TV and home broadband Internet access. And their unified TOS [PDF] (Russian; mirror) for home broadband now says: "3.4.4. The customer may not use the Services for the purpose of transferring voice over the Internet; Skype and other similar software is forbidden." (screenshot). Really, why would you need to phone over the Internet, comrade, when you have a perfectly good cellphone [from MTS, presumably]?" Can anyone out there provide a good translation?
First, the translation is correct enough not to care.
Second, this language got into ToS before MTS buying the cable company and it is not known to be enforced - before or after the MTS deal. Reason for this thing was to reduce the size of bribes toregulating agencies, as the previous ISP had no license for voice-over-landlines and prohibiting Skype gave them a bragaining point in the bribe negotiations. Enforcing it wa, of course, superfluous.
MTS has promised to fix the ToS. We are waiting. Well, I am not - I use and old, medium-size, nice and predictable ISP. what do I care about MTS copper internet.
Lots of German providers do this too (making VoIP a ToS violation), especially on plans which are for smartphones only... the big 5 gigabyte plans which allow tethering usually don't have this restriction... maybe the same is true here.
3.4. Network Subscriber is prohibited to:
3.4.1. Use Network Subscriber Equipment for purposes other than personal, family, home, orfor other purposes related to running a business.
3.4.2. Retransmit, perform (copy), or use radio and TV programs in any other manner (except for personal, noncommercial use by Subscriber).
3.4.3. Perform other actions listed in Part 6 "Subscriber's Rights and Obligations".
3.4.4. Use Services to transmit voice over the data networks, including transmission over the Internet, i.e. Subscriber is prohibited from using software such as Skype and similar, to transmit voice over the Internet.
Contrary to the popular belief, there indeed is no God.
A way to increase income from international phone calls.
Can be circumvented by letting the internet phone provider calling you on a land line (free) or a cellular (with a small surcharge).
To be honest with you, whoever wrote this, can't write proper Russian, because there is double meaning there, which I will try to untangle correctly
3.4 Clients are forbidden:
3.4.1 To use client equipment in manner that is different from personal use, family use, home use. Also clients are forbidden from using the equipment for purposes such as business.
(this sentence, combined with the top 'Clients are forbidden', made it unclear whether business use is forbidden or not, but I believe it says business use is forbidden.)
3.4.2 To redistribute (forward), (replay) copy, and use in any other manner TV and radio programs (except in cases of non-commercial use by the client).
3.4.3 To take any other action, which are defined in the section VI "the rights and obligations" (section of regulations).
(whoever wrote this, needs to have brain untangled, it's all mushed up).
3.4.4 To use these services for the purposes of transmitting voice information via the information network, including the Internet network, i.e., the client is forbidden from using such applications, as Skype and other similar applications for voice transmission over the Internet.
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In short: you can only use this service for your personal/family purposes, not for business. You can't share TV and radio programs (there is nothing about parts of it, this was NOT written by a professional lawyer), and you can't use Skype.
AFAIC this is clearly monopoly control over the networks and trust me on this: this monopoly is completely government supported. There were many laws passed in Russia in the recent years to make sure there is as little available competition as possible.
Hey, what are governments for, right?
there is no ban from MTS. there was a mistake: this is an old version of Agreement from subsidiary. nobody looks in Agreement. proof: http://habrahabr.ru/blogs/telecom/129943/
The problem is thinking somehow that there are some "special" classes of data and other "not so special" classes of data. Net neutrality isn't even really a political game, but rather an arbitrary designation that has no basis in reality.
Seriously think about it if you have any knowledge of network protocols: Does it really matter what you call the data as long as eventually the end users simply see the interpretation of that data? You can put a telephone conversation wrapped up into an MPEG movie requested via HTTP and the end users wouldn't know the difference as long as the software can pull that conversation out of the data stream. Turn it into a PNG image (or series of images) if you have to. TCP/IP ports numbers.... and those mean anything at all? Instead the firewalls pervert everything to squeeze through port 80 so the whole concept is meaningless in the first place.
This goes doubly so for China, as many of those who are skillful in the art of getting around the "Great Firewall of China" have used this concept of data encapsulation for a great many years. You can even do acts of Steganography to "hide in plain sight" data if you really care to in a multitude of manners.
All that attempts to put in classes of service actually accomplish is to raise the bar for an ever escalating arms race where all those who are attempting to control the internet will accomplish is to choke network bandwidth with needless protocols and extra layers of useless routing data that accomplishes nothing in the end. Data simply is data, and if you are being honest as a carrier as well as wanting to actually care about your customers, you would accept net neutrality as a basic business plan because economics would keep you from mucking up your service with all that extra useless data to encapsulate what customers really want to accomplish. Bandwidth goes down along with "quality of service".... not just for those who are playing games to get around the restrictions but also for the rest of us who have to use that same network for "proper" activities recognized by the network carriers. We all lose when this game is played, including the carriers themselves.
If only this argument could be explained to members of parliaments/congresses/legislatures as well as corporate boards of directors... but those folks like to be able to manipulate people for their own ends. Trying to explain liberty to folks like that is like trying to convince a brick wall that it can fly like a bird.
I guess my general point is that unless the US (and similar countries) take the high road on neutrality issues, they're going to find it difficult to make political progress vis-a-vis the internet, because of the slippery slopes involved.
Yeah, you can get around the GFC, but doing so splits into two cases: Wanting to get information that you shouldn't be able to get, and wanting to get information that is only useful when transferred in a timely and usable manner. Gmail performance in China just sucks. OK, thinks me, I'll punch an SSH tunnel through to the imap server and pull it that way. Result? Works perfectly, but very slow. I can't say for sure, but I think that the GFC's approach to tunnel "issue" is simply to dramatically slow down certain kinds of traffic (like SSH), and especially traffic it does not recognize (or does, and wants to impair). There's little doubt in my mind that repeated use of SSH from a given endpoint will gather special attention, once enough red flags arise.
In the mean time, "just make it suck" allows "acceptable" traffic through, sort of. China's censors aren't stupid. The information and political ecosphere is massive; within a country the size of China it can only be approached on a probabilistic basis. Changing the "convenience factor" for information turns the dials on the probability model and generates certain political effects, when observed at scale.
It was news to me ('cause I'm foolishly optimistic) that any site that uses Facebook-backed content delivery, or twitter, or youtube, is simply not visible in China.
If packet-level neutrality is properly implemented globally, my SSH tunnel runs fast. Packet-level neutrality generalizes a solution to the issues of political and private impairment of the net. "Don't mess with the packets", and you have a internet freedom. Of course, that's I-want-a-pony, 'cause there are bad actors out there. It seems we'll be stuck with filtering, at a minimum.
Right, in either scenario they win.
Not that i normally approve of federal government intervention, but some industries do need to be regulated to ensure fairness of service to the citizens. Industries that are fundamental to our way of life ( i wont use the term required however, as we don't NEED them for life.. but it is ingrained into modern society now, just as running water and electricity is )
---- Booth was a patriot ----