Wednesday, July 19, 2006
Skype to be banned too?
BlogSpot isn’t the only one to fall. According to this article in the Hindu BusinessLine, The ISP Association of India is urging DoT to ban Skype and related voice messengers:
In a letter to the DoT, the Internet Service Providers Association of India (ISPAI) said: "Internet telephony services can be offered in India either by an ISP specifically permitted to do so or by a unified access service licensee. However, several service providers such as Skype, Net2Phone, Yahoo, and MSN, are providing Internet telephony services to people in India. Most of these foreign service providers do offer termination in Indian fixed-line telephones as well."
The letter, sent on July 13, also said that these service providers do not possess the requisite licence as mandated by the Government of India, thus vitiating the level playing field for bona fide licensees, such as Indian ISPs.
…
The Indian ISPs have pointed to a recent ban imposed on Skype by the South Korean Government for offering voice service without a licence.
The ISPs also said that the service could prove to be a threat to national security with no monitoring being done.
Here comes the “threat to national security” bogeyman again.
saurab — Jul 20, 2006 1:32:22 AM — # ↩
this sucks
honestly this national security thing has been stretched too far. I'd be surprised if they can actually sustain these bans for any length of time, though. So, I wouldnt be too worried about that.
Kiran Jonnalagadda — Jul 20, 2006 7:50:35 AM — # ↩
Saurab, if they ban a small, obscure site, nobody will notice, so who'll protest to have the ban lifted? We were lucky this time that all of BlogSpot got taken off and enough people got together to raise a ruckus. Next time we may not be as lucky.
saurab — Jul 21, 2006 3:22:47 AM — # ↩
yes that's right
There were too many of us for them to have ignored.... Luckily, on the net unless you actually "take down" a site, there are ways to navigate to where you want to.
Anyway the government fails to surprise me these days. When I heard about the ban thing, I was laughing like crazy. whipped out my vi editor, and within minutes I was merrily surfing the very blogs they had blocked. In fact, the funny thing in all this is that I discovered quite a few blogs that I probably wouldnt have encountered as a result of this... you know the forbidden fruit thingy ;) heh.
Sandipan — Jul 21, 2006 3:04:31 AM — # ↩
Skype ?
Not Skype...It's such a better alternative to calling cards. Next they'll ban Vonage as well. One idiot policy after another... ah well, will the amusement never cease !
AngryNRI — Jul 22, 2006 3:12:50 AM — # ↩
Fuck them
gosh, if the ban on skype and the likes goes through, I will need to pay hundereds of dollars a month to keep in touch at the same level as I currently am! What is with India anyways! Why is it moving in the direction of Pak and China!!