Frequently the blogosphere will be peppered with a report claiming that one or another country has declared that VoIP is to be illegal. This of course will be accompanied by a sanctimonious claim that these regulators don’t understand that IP knows no boundary. Such stories take leave only when port blocking needs to be written about. Today, I came across one such entry that has compiled a list of countries that have made it VoIP illegal. Since I know that some of the claims are not true, I did my own research for other claims. (The entry does not provide links to any of them, save one.)
It turns out many of them are “tabloid claims”. For example, the entry claims that “South Africa - Warns citizens that making calls using VoIP will be considered breaking the law.” I got the impression that it is the South African government that has issued the warning. But according to The Register, it is SA telco Telekom that THINKS network bypass is illegal. So first it is not the government; second it is not VoIP, but bypass that could be illegal. The distinction is if the call is end-to-end IP, then legality is not questioned. I have written many times in here as well as comments at other places to suggest that in India it is perfectly legal to use VoIP as long as you do not bypass international gateway. But it doesn’t matter. Some of the other entries are simply too much. It seems that in Qatar, ONE “user reported not being able to use Skype from either a dialup or his ADSL connection while voice over MSN was still working.” Turkey is “apparently not happy about VoIP but tolerates it for now.” And so on down the list.
What is my position on regulating VoIP? Each country has to decide for itself on the regulation. But if somebody were to ask my opinion, I would tell them to make sure that the regulations are consistent. For example, allowing free data communications, but blocking on-net VoIP sessions is pointless. Alternatively, if they allow free PSTN interconnection for VoIP, then they should be prepared to all traffic to masquerade as VoIP to take advantage of the arbitrage scheme. Don’t let “voice” in VoIP color your thinking. Finally, don’t pay attention to the claims that there are no borders in the IP world. Germany successfully enforces its anti-Nazi regulations and all search engines abide by them. Many ultra high-speed users in Hong Kong have different limits on bandwidth consumption for domestic and international end points.
My request to fellow bloggers is to be more precise when they report on VoIP regulations. There is a difference between a ban on on-net VoIP calls and requiring tariff while interconnecting to PSTN. Also licensing regime for service providers is not tantamount to banning VoIP, when a taxi driver is required to get a license; but if this is used to harass a potential competitor of an incumbent monopoly, then for heaven’s sake let us join in the outcry.
Posted by aswath at April 19, 2005 03:15 AM
regulation of VoIP is an interesting question. I attended a talk today from Dave Clark (MIT) who noted how it was the DoJ / Home Affairs reps who wanted to have intercept capability built-into the code for VoIP due to the difficulty of traditional tapping a packet-switched phonecall. i think we are fortunate here in the EU with the recent announcement of 'hands-off' regulation of VoIP that the NRAs have been advised to follow. hopefully itll stay that way as too stringent regulation can stifle innovation that is emerging thru voip capabilities
Posted by: will at April 19, 2005 12:31 PMI wish I am able to get to see what Clark said or for that matter what is the specific request from DoJ. If service providers are required to comply with the full CALEA requirement, then they have to relay media through their network elements for ALL calls, just so that one call's content can be inercepted without being detected. I suggest that this will dramatically affect many VoIP service providers.
Ironically this will not serve the intended objective, since the miscreants can easiliy communicate without the aid of the service providers. That is why I feel that CALEA must be applied at the Network layer. For this CALEA needs to be rewritten.
Posted by: Aswath at April 19, 2005 10:09 PMI think it’s very interesting that the conversation about regulation varies so much from country to country specifically in regards to the relationship between government revenues and regulation
For example in the developing world the discussion is often related to government revenue but in the US it largely surrounds e911 and interception.
My question is, what about the EU? If they move towards non-regulation will that not undermine the traditionally expensive (in comparison to NA) phone markets? Why has the telephone lobby not stepped up to the bat to ensure regulation and that they will not loose an ability to charge per minute on local and domestic calls (as they have for ions)?
In Canada things are interesting as even the dominant telco is getting into voip (along with cable companies), the government has been slow to discuss this trend but no one is waiting. In comparison to Europe this would seem to indicate that the Canadian telcos are seeing an increased revenue, not decreased revenue from voip - but the difference being Canadians (and Americans) have unlimited local (and sometimes domestic long distance) already.
Legal or not, the genie is out of the bottle:
http://www.asterisk.org/
http://www.eff.org/deeplinks/archives/001777.php
http://www.eff.org/Privacy/Surveillance/CALEA/
Posted by: voipuser at April 27, 2005 08:02 PM