VoIP Now Technically Illegal In China

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)."

How to play Chinese Monopoly

[KublaiKhan]

Now that's a happy little situation right there. I'm glad the FCC just stated, flat-out, that telco operators wouldn't be able to pull that particular shenanigans with services like skype here.

Though really, it's not all that surprising. China's gone for home-grown 'equivalents' of popular overseas services for quite some time--look at their 'facebook' and their 'google' workalikes, all doubtless with more than enough spyware built into 'em to keep an eye on dissidents.

Re:Like everything else illegal in China...

[Anonymous Coward]

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

Shows how badly China owns us

[l0ungeb0y]

Our government and corporations stand idly by while China infiltrates our military, government and corporate networks, commits blatant acts of corporate espionage, places unfair regulations on foreign companies operations within their country and now pulls blatant protectionist laws to stifle competition.

But nothing will be done because China is the largest emerging economy on the planet and no one can afford to pass up a piece of that pie.
Back in the day the US and other nations would be slinging trade embargos left and right and playing hard ball. Today, we're so weak and poor we just bend over and take it.

Re:or?

[Anonymous Coward]

This.

That the article states "and is widely seen as a way to protect the traditional telecom operators' profits" is laughable. This is about China's need to control the lives of their citizens, period.

Re:Wow...

[icebike]

So even "the commies" are really just tools for the telecom industry.

I presume you are responding to this line in the summary:

is widely seen as a way to protect the traditional telecom operators' profits.

If you believe that bit, I have a bridge to sell you.

The thing is the Chinese government would rather be seen as a tool than to lose control of the population.

Although the encryption in Skype has allegedly been broken (some say the voice encryption portion is still intact) the ability to scan packetized voice (let alone encrypted packetized voice) in real time is probably simply beyond the resources available, especially with things like skype finding their own routes for traffic.

Voip to carriers can at least be watched at the carrier's premises.

This has nothing to do with profits. This is the same government that blocked almost every western news site on the event of a dissident receiving a Nobel prize last month.

Re:Protect state-owned biz by outlawing competitio

[hedwards]

Because free trade isn't about free trade so much as it is a tool with which the rich can bludgeon the poor into working for less than their labor is worth.

This is exactly the sort of situation that Marx was concerned by. The Bourgeoisie forcing the Proletariat to compete with each other to suppress wages so that the Bourgeoisie could have more money.

Could not care less what China is doing

[Tanuki64]

Western countries are not better. Wait a few years and most of the internet restrictions will be implemented here, too. The excuses will be different and of course it will be a total different thing since were are the good by definition.