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Communications The Internet Your Rights Online

Costa Rica May Criminalize VoIP 407

Posted by timothy from the man-versus-the-state-telco dept.
chia_monkey writes "Here's an interesting little tidbit about the 'free' Internet. Seems Costa Rica may make it a crime to make Internet-based phone calls. It would be a shame if this sets a precedent of setting legistlation that would seriously stunt the growth of these emerging technologies that should be making communication cheaper and easier, not harder and illegal."
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Costa Rica May Criminalize VoIP More

Costa Rica May Criminalize VoIP

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  • Crime ? (Score:2, Insightful)

    by mirko ( 198274 )
    This just seems so wrong : of all central american countries, Costa Rica is the only one without a confusing bloddy story, why would they start now ?

    • Where do you draw the line? (Score:4, Interesting)

      by FalconZero ( 607567 ) * <`FalconZero' `at' `Gmail.com'> on Tuesday March 01, 2005 @08:08AM (#11811552)
      • What about if I record myself, and post it to the net, then someone downloads it, thats (literally)my VOICE over IP. Will they make that Illegal?
      • How about if I write some text and put a Text to Speech engine on my site with my voice loaded into the engine? Will they make that Illegal?
      • What about if Costa Rica telcos want to relay their voice calls internally over IP (at any point in the pathway) Will they make that Illegal?
      Maybe next they'll make all paketized transfer of voice data illegal? - BYE BYE GPRS. This is what happens when people make laws without consulting unbiased (or unbiased on average) techinal people.

      • Vonage over SSH? (Score:3, Interesting)

        by BobPaul ( 710574 ) *
        Is it possible? Obviously you'd have to avoid trying to get a Costa Rica local number, but for someone with relatives in a foreign country, would this be a plausible solution?

      • Re:Where do you draw the line? (Score:4, Insightful)

        by Politburo ( 640618 ) on Tuesday March 01, 2005 @09:01AM (#11811858)
        In keeping with tradition I did not RTFA. However, the article summary states "internet based phone calls," so I think your ludicrous situations where you looked at several literal, but unused, meanings of "voice over ip" are irrelevant. This is obviously a power grab by whatever telco companies/monopoly exists in Costa Rica. I'm not at all sure how you jumped to making "all packetized transfer of voice data illegal - BYE BYE GPRS."

        Furthermore, there is no such thing as unbiased. I believe that the 'unbiased technical people' you would have liked to have been consulted would actually have been biased towards unregulated VoIP. Just because you agree with them doesn't mean that they're unbiased.

    • Not just a crime... (Score:3, Interesting)

      by quarkscat ( 697644 )
      but a look at the future. If you are a member
      of the WTO and have small/fledgling national
      industries to protect from unplanned for (and
      unregulated) competition, you make it illegal.

      You might say that Costa Rica has adopted the
      very same measures that the USA's "**AA" have
      implimented in the face of new media distribution
      modes, and similar tactics that the big regional
      USA phone companies have adopted (with big
      government help) to protect them from government/
      community WiFi competition.

      That being said, it seem

      • Re:Not just a crime... (Score:2, Interesting)

        by niiler ( 716140 )
        There is an interesting confluence of things going on, it seems. Costa Rica has suceeded as a nation largely because it has not privatized many services. Privatization of services in central and south American countries has often led to rampant inflation and in some caused the fall of the middle class in the case of Argentina [gregpalast.com] or led to water shortages as in Bolivia. [gregpalast.com] Contrary to what is preached in the U.S. about government regulation, many people actually seem to benefit from it.

        What seems to be happeni

    • Not a crime; just a badly written article (Score:5, Insightful)

      by jfengel ( 409917 ) on Tuesday March 01, 2005 @10:33AM (#11812592) Homepage Journal
      The entire discussion on Slashdot has centered around a substantial misreading of the article.

      The real point of the article is that the Costa Rican national telephone company wants VOIP regulated as a service, like the other phone lines are. We are having the same debate in the United States. The phone company here was originally designed as a monopoly, and universal service meant subsidies. Find a way around the monopoly, and there's no way to fund the subsidies. So you either regulate it enough to collect taxes or do away with the phone service in rural areas (which is often the basis of internet service in those areas as well.)

      Costa Rica has similar regulatory issues. So they're in the phase of "Hey, this ought to be regulated." The regulations are completely undefined as yet, so some reporter speculates that they could in some ludicrous limit case result in criminalizing VOIP and then mentions it in the headline, the lead line, and then precisely once in the actual body of the article.

      Whereupon Slashdot copies the headline, and focuses the summary on it. Read into the rest of the article and you might find that most of the time when the Slashdot response to an article is "How could anybody be so incredibly stupid?" the answer is usually, "They're not, they've just been taken out of context."

      It may well be that any regulation of VOIP is a bad idea, that the Internet wants to be free, and if it outcompetes the old regime then we'll have to come up with a new plan. In Costa Rica's case, if they lose too much tax money from POTS to VOIP, they'll have to raise taxes elsewhere. Perhaps they'd raise a sales tax or income tax. But talk of criminalizing VOIP strikes me as a hysterical response to a subject that requires actual thought.

  • Panama/Paraguay? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Spacejock ( 727523 ) on Tuesday March 01, 2005 @07:52AM (#11811474)
    Didn't this already happen in another South American country? I thought I read something about a year ago on a similar subject, where VOIP was going to be illegal to protect the state-owned telecommunications company.

    • Re:Panama/Paraguay? (Score:2, Interesting)

      by Anonymous Coward
      In Panama, phone carriers, aside from the monopoly, cannot carry domestic long distance calls. But the way some VOIP carriers get around this is by routing the traffic outside the country and then back again to complete a domestic long distance call.

      Believe it or not they can still do it cheaper than the national phone company.

    • Belarus (Score:2, Informative)

      by totierne ( 56891 )
      I think someone was up on charges in Belarus, I think they got fined, maybe I should search slashdot for a reference...

      http://www.boingboing.net/2004/10/19/belarus_bus ts _americ.html

    • About Costa Rica (Score:3, Informative)

      by qwasty ( 782400 )

      OK, everyone seems to have some wrong ideas about what kind of country Costa Rica is, so here's a little info from someone who's actually lived there.

      CR is not communist, or poverty stricken. It is in fact the most stable and economically successful latin american country, yes, it beats Mexico and Brazil as well.

      Most Costa Ricans have cellphones, and DSL internet access either at home, a library, or in the neighborhood internet cafe.

      The country is democratic, and very pro-technology. Many US technolog

      • Re:About Costa Rica (Score:2, Interesting)

        by prdallan ( 847818 )
        ... , yes, it beats Mexico and Brazil as well

        Sorry, but I don't buy that. Now, really, could you post some data to support such claims?

        Mexico and Brazil may have lots of social problems - and maybe in this aspect it could be possible that Costa Rica had some better indexes. But as far as I have heard, it does not get even close when talking about GDP, market size, level of industrialization, native technology, universities, scientific work, just to name a few...

      • Re:About Costa Rica (Score:5, Interesting)

        by ndrtkr ( 708778 ) on Tuesday March 01, 2005 @08:47AM (#11811779) Homepage Journal
        Are you talking about the same "Costa Rica" ? The one where I live?

        I wouldn't say CR is the most stable and economically successful latin american country...

        That's just hilarious. Maybe central american country; and still, that's not something we should feel proud of.

        Don't confuse the general situation of the country with the way people like to live. Sadly, we have adopted the american way of buy now, pay forever... But that doesn't mean everyone is wealthy...

        And to say something about the topic, what else can you expect from a government controlled company that owns the monopoly on telecommunications and technology? It is true that a lot of people have cellphones, but that's a status symbol, you should be here to see the AWFUL service we get, both on TDMA and GSM.

        Let alone talking about Costa Rica being pro-technology, that's just NOT true; only 6 months ago DLS started to be accessible and still the service is just below average.

        I read this news on local newspaper a few days ago and I just laughed. Ignorance is a bliss.

      • Re:About Costa Rica (Score:2, Interesting)

        by thetejon ( 798945 )
        Okay, I agree with most of what you said, but do most Americans really go there for prostitution? What about the beaches and cloud forests, the laid back atmosphere, friendly locals, low cost of living? If Americans think that the only thing worthwhile in Costa Rica is prostitutes, there are some travel agents that need to be fired.
      • Costa Rica also happens to be an international finance center (IFC), which is a more accurate and non-derogatory term for "offshore tax haven". Since IFCs typically make great efforts to maintain policies that attract international business, I find this decidedly anti-business legislation to be curious.

      • Re:About Costa Rica (Score:3, Interesting)

        by cybersaga ( 451046 )
        runs an American-style government

        This is the only place I disagree with you. Costa Rica is hardly like the States, nor even supports it. When Bush went on about the Coalition of the Willing, Costa Rica asked that their name be removed. Costa Rica has no army. They concentrate on making their own country better without meddling in the affairs of other countries.

        The article states that the ICE is a monopoly, but that's how they keep things in check. In English, the ICE is the Costa Rican Institute of Elect

      • Re:About Costa Rica (Score:2, Informative)

        by Politburo ( 640618 )
        The country became a first world country only during the last 10 years

        That's odd. The Cold War has been over for 10+ years.

        First, Second and Third world designations are NOT [nationsonline.org] economic designations! They were used during the Cold War to describe the various alliances and blocs. The "First World" was the US/Western Europe and anyone allied with them. The "Second World" was USSR/East Europe and sometimes China. The "Third World" was everyone else. Since most poorer nations had their own problems to worry abo

        • wrong (Score:4, Interesting)

          by glMatrixMode ( 631669 ) on Tuesday March 01, 2005 @10:14AM (#11812409)
          no that's wrong. The expression "Third world" is a translation of the french "tiers monde", which is a reference to the "tiers état", litteraly "third state", which used to designate unprivileged people in the kingdom of France, until the 18th century (by contrast with the nobles and the members of the Church).

          The expression "tiers monde" dates back to 1952, and has been forged by demographer Alfred Sauvy, to designate poor countries, implying that the "tiers monde" is being despised and exploited just as the "tiers état" used to be.

          See :
          http://www.linternaute.com/histoire/motcle/2923/a/ 1/1/tiers-monde.shtml [linternaute.com]

      • Re:About Costa Rica (Score:5, Informative)

        by amontiel ( 863735 ) on Tuesday March 01, 2005 @09:14AM (#11811931)
        This is such an ignorant comment. I AM A COSTA RICAN citizen, and I worked there for Acer and Intel before moving to Europe. I know about the state of technological penetration in the country and what qwasty says here is just a bunch of uninformed facts. DSL at home??? Tell that to ALL of my friends there who have been trying for years to even get a decent ISDN connection at home. DSL is not even available to the general public yet. The so called "Advanced Internet" project has been delayed for 3 years now and it is not until last week, that the Costa Rican Institute of Electricity (ICE in Spanish) finished installing the routers to start selling DSL access at prices that are prohibitive to the general population. They will start offering a 128/64 Kbps line for $28/month and YES that is a 128/64Kbps line for that price. The Costa Rica you describe does not sound like the same place where I was born and raised and where I lived for 30 years of my life and which I visited again just recently. Efficient economy and public transportation? REALLY? Please tell me where did you travel in the country so I can move there. I won't even reply to the business ownership stupidity or to the prostitution bit. Now, about the reason for this move by the ICE. The only reason behind this is that Costa Rican telecommunications are a state monopoly (yes, a la MS) and what the ICE is trying to do is either define VoIP as a value-added service and regulate it or have it declared illegal. If you are going to post half-assed information, at least try to be objective about it. For those who can read Spanish, here is an article from La Nacion [nacion.com] Costa Rica's largest newspaper, describing the situation. Basically, all they are afraid of is losing the profit from international phone calls, and because all telecommunications use public infrastructure, they would like to be able to regulate it or control it completely. Anyway, please do some research or reading before you post such crap. Better yet, take a plane and go to Costa Rica for real. It might enlighten you a bit.

        • Re:About Costa Rica (Score:2, Interesting)

          by qwasty ( 782400 )
          I'm not ignorant, but I'm not costa rican either, so maybe I seem ignorant to you, who is a costa rican...

          When I had DSL in CR, I got it from Racsa in San Jose, the capital city. It's not fast DSL, but DSL it is. I had a friend of mine get DSL in her home so she could better communicate with other international parts of our company, and it seemed that Racsa is more inclined to get things done if you mention it's for business. The price was high by costa rican standards, but not unaffordable by individuals.
      • Let me preface this by saying I was recently on a 3-week vacation in Costa Rica where I got to see a lot of the country.

        Most Costa Ricans have cellphones, and DSL internet access either at home, a library, or in the neighborhood internet cafe.

        You are smoking crack. I saw very few cellphones in this country -- even in San Jose (the most metropolitain city I visited). Internet in the home is way over the pay scale of most Costa Ricans. In San Jose, broadband does exist, but you pay for it. In most oth

  • it's not yet (Score:3, Informative)

    by coolcold ( 805170 ) on Tuesday March 01, 2005 @07:53AM (#11811479) Homepage
    criminalize....it's just the telecom company wants to criminalize it but somehow i think it would be interesting to see how they argue on their point

    • sadly enough... (Score:5, Insightful)

      by ecalkin ( 468811 ) on Tuesday March 01, 2005 @08:01AM (#11811514)
      it's easy: since the telephone co is owned/controlled by the state, voip is *stealing* from the state.

      similar to states that tax alcohol and it's a crime to bring (over a very limited qty) it into the state from other states.

      eric
      • states that tax alcohol and it's a crime to bring (over a very limited qty) it into the state from other states.

        It's not a crime to bring over however much alcohol you like. You just have to pay the taxes. How do you think the CH_3CH_2OH made it into your state in the first place?

        I'm assuming here that your local law (US?) is not totally insane

        • true enough, but (Score:3, Insightful)

          by ecalkin ( 468811 )
          i live in kentucky. more than a fair amount of drinking alcohol is fermented, brewed, and/or distilled here.

          eric
        • It is illegal in Pennsylvania for a citizen of the commonwealth to import liquor across state lines. There's no option to pay the taxes, you must buy it from the state liquor stores or the beer distributors.

          Interstate commerce be damned.

  • Great news from impoverished island... (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward
    from socialism gone wrong... instead of developing state owned infrastructure to benefit society, develop state owned monopolies to fleece society.

    at least some verizon asshat didn't write that law. i'll take politicians writing stupid laws over corporate fascists any day.
    • You can keep your opinion, but at least get the facts straight.

      Costa Rica is not particularly impoverished (at least compared to all of its neighbors), and it isn't an island.
    • Okay, first:

      Costa Rica is NOT an island.

      Second: It's not at all impoverished, in fact it's flourishing.

      For many years, the state owned infrstructure did benefit society. Cellular and telephone rates are affordable at local prices, if you can obtain them. Now, it's a make-work project, inefficient, top-heavy, and on the edge of being privatised.

  • Small step (Score:4, Insightful)

    by johannesg ( 664142 ) on Tuesday March 01, 2005 @07:54AM (#11811484)
    I suppose it is only a small step from saying "you are not allowed to transport data over this network if it encodes voice traffick" to "you are _only_ allowed to transport government-licensed data over this network".

    But hey, I'm not worried - I still have an acoustic modem somewhere in my house...

  • As if one country could withstand change (Score:3, Interesting)

    by 2TecTom ( 311314 ) on Tuesday March 01, 2005 @07:54AM (#11811486) Homepage Journal
    Let them try, in the end, any such effort to cripple the net will only end in failure. My big question is why do we elect such dumbasses?
    • My big question is why do we elect such dumbasses?


      You proved my theory that Canadians are idiots.

  • Good luck... (Score:4, Interesting)

    by tliet ( 167733 ) on Tuesday March 01, 2005 @07:54AM (#11811488)
    with trying to enforce that policy. Would iChat on Mac OS X (or any other voice/video chat program) be illegal as well?

    • Re:Good luck... (Score:2, Informative)

      by iztaru ( 832035 )

      It depends of the new law.

      In this moment is aready ilegal to use the ICE's data network for VoIP trafic because it competes with the ICE's voice network (ICE has a monopoly on voice trafic). However, the problem is not the personal use of it, the problem begins when you want to profit on it, because it would be unfair competence:

      1. You pay a personal connection to the internet.
      2. You set a business of international phone calls.
      3. You are using the ICE's network for something that is not allowed according you

  • Huh? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by DarKry ( 847943 ) <darkry AT darkry DOT net> on Tuesday March 01, 2005 @07:54AM (#11811490) Homepage Journal
    Might as well throw people in jail for talking. hell lets ban all communication while we are at it. I mean heaven forbid I write a note to someone and hand it to them instead of letting a middle man make money off of it.
    • While there are obvious problems with this proposed law, it is no where near a ban on "all communication" and there is absolutely no insight in this chicken little post.

    • What? You thought "A penny for your thought" meant they wanted to pay you?

      You thought your two cents worth was going to be a revenue stream rather than an expense?

      You must be a terrorist.

      Why do you hate Freedom?

  • Nationalised telephone company (Score:5, Insightful)

    by igorthefiend ( 831721 ) on Tuesday March 01, 2005 @07:56AM (#11811496)
    That's the key to all this. They want it to be illegal because the state might lose money.

    • Re:Nationalised telephone company (Score:4, Interesting)

      by gowen ( 141411 ) <gwowen@gmail.com> on Tuesday March 01, 2005 @08:00AM (#11811510) Homepage Journal
      Right, and it's *only* the telephone company proposing this. No one in the Costa Rican government is (as yet) onside.

      Can you say "Nothing to see here. Move Along"?
      • Well, that's changing. As a result of the Central American Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA) negotiations, Costa Rica finally, after being asked to leave the room because they weren't playing ball and "this room is only for serious negotiations" (funny thing, a friend of mine was involved in the negotiations and had some choice things to say regarding that), finally came to and agreed to privatize, over time, two of its big national industries: insurance and telecom. [http://www.ustr.gov/assets/Document_Library/

  • Illegal in South Africa till Feb 05 (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 01, 2005 @07:56AM (#11811497)
    VOIP was criminilized in South Africa since 1996. It was illegal to make any voip calls whatsoever, that means no MSN Chat, Skype etc.
    VOIP became legal on Feb 1005 only after the Telkom (national telco) regulator started to break up Telkom's monopoly.

  • The state telco has a monopoly and sees VoIP as a threat to its massively expensive and arcane service. Solution? Criminalize VoIP under the feeble pretense that you're fighting a war against drugs or somesuch.

  • Maybe the real reason? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by tobybuk ( 633332 ) on Tuesday March 01, 2005 @08:02AM (#11811516)
    I've not RTFA but from discussion I had with someone 'in the know' it may well come back to the country loosing a significant amount of income from the price they charge for inbound telephony. When you call CR part of the price you pay for the call goes to the CR government. This is vital foreign exchange a country such as theirs cann ill afford to lose.

    For a country that needs this income to build its hospitals, social infrastructure (yes and Army, corruption etc) it is a big blow.

    If this is the reason I can actually support this. Despite what seem like the majority of the Slashdot crowd think, there is more to life that getting 'free' services from the Internet.

    • (yes and Army, corruption etc)

      Um, Costa Rica doesn't have an army. It's probably one of the least corrupt countries in Central America...
      Not that banning VoIP is good idea or anything - just be careful about what you say (especially when you have no idea what you're talking about ;)
      • It's probably one of the least corrupt countries in Central America

        Which is like being the least dead person in the cemetary.

        Of course, I haven't been there in about 7-8 years so maybe things have changed.

        Awsome vacation place, though, VoIP or no.
    • Actually, Costa Rica does not actually have an army, and they are quite proud of this. What they do have is a stable democratic government and a literacy rate very close to that of the U.S.. It is true that they are poor compared to many nations and may have some slightly unorthodox ways of making money (For example, they charge a $26 exit tax when tourists leave the country - it goes towards maintaining the airport and such). But this is not a backwards country run by corrupt drug dealers or army genera
      • Heh, who needs an army when big brother USA is around to defend the hemisphere? Just think of it as a hidden foreign aid cost. Or, from Costa Rica's point of view, a no cost asset on the national balance sheet.
        • Not Costa Rica, they don't have one. There was a coup in '48 and after some chaos, the folks on top decided that having an army was in their case doing more harm then good.

          A very good friend of mine did her PhD on Costa Rica, so I've heard a bit about it over the years.
    • Comment removed based on user account deletion
    • I can appreciate where you are going with that, but as someone who has lived in Costa Rica for several years, and had to deal with all of it's communication monpolies and other government services, this is completely teh wrong way to look at it.

      That's NOT the reason they want to do it. The national phone company monopoly has been doing badly for years, they employee too many people, are a national make-work project, and are on the verge of being privatized. This is just one more death-cry from a dying com

  • simpler solution (Score:4, Insightful)

    by spectrokid ( 660550 ) on Tuesday March 01, 2005 @08:03AM (#11811523) Homepage
    if they have a monopoly, why not just block it at the first router?
    • Because smart people will change the ports around, or shove it through an SSH tullel or some such. Any technical block short of physically puling the plug will be circumvented in days at most.

  • Good idea (Score:5, Funny)

    by jbb999 ( 758019 ) on Tuesday March 01, 2005 @08:05AM (#11811533)
    They should also make it a crime to talk to people without using a phone at all. After all you're just bypassing the phone companies systems by doing so which clearly should be a crime.

  • Egypt did it first (Score:2, Informative)

    by Chris Kamel ( 813292 )
    Actually I'm very ashamed to say that if there's one thing we've led the world in, it is this one. It is currently illegal to provide VoIP services, because the telephone company is government owned and they make loads of money off international phone calls. Heard rumours that this may change sometime in the future though...

  • Already the case here. (Score:5, Informative)

    by Minupla ( 62455 ) <minupla@noSpAm.gmail.com> on Tuesday March 01, 2005 @08:13AM (#11811585) Homepage Journal
    In Antigua it's already illegal. Cable and Wireless pushed through a law making it illegal. When you sign up for ISP service, you have to agree not to do it, along with the usual AUP.

    Min
  • ...And those bloody socialists keep trying to tell us that capitalism doesn't lead to innovation!
    • Considering as how it's a state-run telecom, I don't really see where your sarcasm is going. :p

      I mean, isn't a state-run anything more socialist than capitalist, despite the fact that it's still working for money?
      • Yeah, sorta. But they're still there to make money, and they're trying to eliminate the competition. So it's still capitalistic ideas. Hell, these days, in some countries there isn't the much difference between a private enterprise and a state enterprise anyway, with all the under-the-table deals and such.

        BTW. A state isn't inherently capitalistic or socialistic.

  • If we pattern any sigificant amount of our laws after Costa Rica, I think VoIP will be the least of our problems. Hopefully the old folks home (aka Congress) will know better than to take that kind of precedent in mind.
  • There was a reasonably well published case in the United Arab Emirates where the owners of a VOIP company were thrown in jail. Though there does not seem to be anything against using such, but selling the services was too much for the state monopoly.

  • Just Politics (Score:3, Insightful)

    by blueZhift ( 652272 ) on Tuesday March 01, 2005 @08:17AM (#11811607) Homepage Journal
    There's probably nothing to get excited about here. The Costa Ricans aren't any stupider than anyone else in the world. The local phone monopoly just wants to get some attention, which will set the stage for whatever deal finally comes out of the governing process. Very likely VoIP won't be criminalized in Costa Rica. It will probably have fees attached to it. The only question will be how much these fees are likely to be. I would guess they will be high enough to protect the phone monopoly. Just the usual politics...

  • Costa Rica? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by sdo1 ( 213835 ) on Tuesday March 01, 2005 @08:17AM (#11811609) Journal
    It would be a shame if this sets a precedent

    It's Costa Rica for crying out loud. They're not capable of setting a global economic precedent except for maybe the price of coffee.

    -S

    • No doubt you are American -- you don't say it... but reading between the lines you seem to be saying only the USA can set precedents... or matters. A dictionary defination of precedent is:

      "something done or said that may serve as an example"

      Why can this not serve as an example for other countries?

  • And in the US, it's municipal Wi-Fi (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Silwenae ( 514138 ) * on Tuesday March 01, 2005 @08:17AM (#11811610) Homepage
    The only difference between this and what's going on in the US, is in this case, it's a state-controlled monopoly and in the US it's the few remaining Baby Bells doing the same [washingtonpost.com] with trying to ban [wired.com] municipal wi-fi.

    Unfortunately, it's all about the telecom industry, both in the US, and abroad, trying to consolidate power, and shut out open access, whether it's data or voice.
    • Unfortunately, it's all about the telecom industry, both in the US, and abroad, trying to consolidate power, and shut out open access, whether it's data or voice.

      And what happens when you have municipal wifi and they ban it (along with a lot of other stuff) because it's not "community friendly" or it wastes too much bandwith?
  • Numbers you can get charged to call? For voice services?

    Many *cough* numbers in some magazines terminate in S.American countries... If everyone gets used to 'net based comms, free data exchange etc, how will these sex lines survive?

    At least ISP support lines would still work ;-) [unless we have a redundant network layer for VoIP...]

    I have the word VoIP... just call it streaming audio.

    ok.
  • Feel free to label this as Off Topic but I have a question.

    As a self-proclaimed geek, I've totally missed on the VoIP bandwagon. Other than the fact that VoIP is currently cheaper, what are the advantages for customers who choose VoIP vs. POTS.

    I've thought about getting it, but just for the geekyness factor of it all and to save a few bucks but I wonder if I'm just missing something.
    • There are a few, the first is that it is often cheaper. For me the big bonus is that I have a 646 area code phone number. SO even though I live in Israel my phone number looks like and acts like its in New York. So you can call me from the USA and canada like its a domestic call.
  • A few years ago, they allowed lots of spammers to off-shore there. Since all their Internet access is via the national monopoly, it wasn't hard to just block them at the router to fix the problem. The problem of the people being spammed, that is. It left the non-spammers in Costa Rica high and dry since there was no reasonable ISP that they could move their business to.

    You'd think they'd have learned something from that about monopolies.

  • Brother-in-law Political System (Score:5, Insightful)

    by iammrjvo ( 597745 ) on Tuesday March 01, 2005 @08:26AM (#11811664) Homepage Journal

    I've been to Costa Rica four or five times to visit friends. When I was there on my honeymoon fives years back, there were big protests because the government was about to hand the phone system over to the president's brother-in-law - or something like that.

    At any rate, the Costa Rican political system tends to be pretty corrupt in the sense that those in power tend to give big favors to their friends in family. I'll bet something like this is going on.

  • What will this mean for Phil Hughes? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Nate B. ( 2907 ) on Tuesday March 01, 2005 @08:40AM (#11811732) Homepage Journal
    The owner/publisher of Linux Journal moved to Costa Rica some years back and hasn't been subtle for his reasons, namely the DMCA. Now in an ironic twist, the paradise he moved to is considering making VOIP illegal, a technology I'd bet he uses. I'd look for Phil to lead the charge against this one.

  • Someone go offshore, and cut access to Costa Rica. Let them have their private internet. If they want to set rules, then they should have to live with the results. If they want freedom and choice, then we stay hooked up.

  • Kinda like... (Score:3, Insightful)

    by gorbachev ( 512743 ) on Tuesday March 01, 2005 @08:50AM (#11811795) Homepage
    ...when phone and cable companies in US are trying to make municipal broadband development. While they're quite as brazen as their Costa Rican brothers, they certainly are trying just as hard.
  • This is odd considering that Costa Rica has probably the biggest Libertarian movements in the world. Of course, it's only one politician (:)), but he's been making lots of headway
  • I can't talk about the USA, naturally (not living there), but over here, that's just the same way it's always been for amateur radio, more or less. Now, it hasn't been outright illegal, of course, but it was (and from what I know, still is) illegal to use it to actually have conversations with people, as opposed to just exchanging your call signs etc. The reason for that was - of course! - that the state-owned monopoly telecom did not want people to start using that instead of the telephone...

    I'm not sure
  • I was born in Costa Rica and live there (here, indeed) since then... The problem in general is this, there is a big company called the Costarican Electricity Institute (ICE in spanish), it is run by the government and some of their achievments is that thanks to their founders, this was the sencond country in the world with electricity (One-two years later of New York's street lamps innaguration).

    That company holds all the permissions to grant electricity, phone and internet access, and in fact, one of the
  • Okay, this is silly, and may well not be worth taking at face value.

    But it does raise some interesting questions. For example, the world currently pays a lot for (voice) telephone service; some places more than others, of course, but there's still a lot of revenue there.

    What if all that traffic were to move over to IP? Lots of revenue lost, of course, but would the Internet cope at reasonable quality? Would it need lots more infrastructure to handle the extra traffic? If so, how does that get built

  • Telkom - yes!!! (Score:3, Informative)

    by sapped ( 208174 ) <mlangenhoven&yahoo,com> on Tuesday March 01, 2005 @09:42AM (#11812137)
    Good old Telkom has already declared this illegal [theregister.co.uk] in south Africa.

    For those of you that don't know the situation; Telkom is the only landline provider in South Africa, but also handily makes the rules deciding who can do what with any telecommunication business. Neat huh?

  • OK, I'm Costa Rican, Here's the Deal: (Score:3, Informative)

    by CharAznable ( 702598 ) on Tuesday March 01, 2005 @09:42AM (#11812140)
    First of all, let's clear some things:
    • Costa Rica has no army, just a police force and border guard.
    • There is no death penalty. Drunk drivers don't get shot, just gang-raped in jail by other inmates.
    • There is one telco, called ICE, and it's a state monopoly.
    • Said telco offers excellent local phone service and cheap cellular lines, but incredibly crappy internet access. At least they have DSL and cable, but all my dad can get is 512k down, 128k up.

    So what's happening is that there is a constitutionally mandated monopoly on telecommunications. What's happening that a bunch of old farts, the kind that have no fucking clue and are holding the country back, are figuring that VoiP would technically be in violation of said monopoly.
    To be honest, it's amazing that there is such a big software industry in Costa Rica, considering that internet access is so crappy and regulated. A lot of people are trying to challenge the ICE monopoly, but it's hard going against the old guard. That's what Costa Rican nerds have to put up with.
  • This might be the move that forces cryptophones into popular acceptance. How will their cops know that our two streams are VoIP, when we use two random ports, negotiated at an httpd (port 80), and our connections are encrypted to noise? People will need crypto just to get away with the cheap calls - the economics will force the acceptance of the extra stealth tech. By the time their gov't gets it together to do some kind of end run, it will be too popular, and too many influential Costa Ricans will need it.
  • But I'll conject it has something todo with the fact that when people are using VOIP it makes it harder for the government to tap the phone to listen in.

    And/or drug runners/dealers/czars are using VOIP todo their business... thus if they catch them using VOIP they can at least charge them for *something* i.e why the US government generally gets mobsters on stuff like tax evasion and not for cutting people in half with a chainsaw...

  • I live here and there is 1 telco (Score:5, Insightful)

    by dindi ( 78034 ) on Tuesday March 01, 2005 @09:57AM (#11812248)
    ICE is the name of the only telco in Costa Rica.
    They provide internet, phone landline and cell.

    Just to give an idea, GSM network just ran out of free lines, waiting period for a landline in suburban (not off the grid) areas is 6+ months.

    I am renting an office to have net, because at my place there is no landline, nor 2-way cable (so you need a modem with dial up and cable, the latter DL the phone for upstream comms)

    Back to the topic: Costa Rica has ONLINE casinos, sportsbooks, bingo halls, and they ALL use VOIP.
    Call centers use VOIP.
    If you make an emergency call int he states and do not speek english, there is a chance, that the call is directed here to a translator OVER VOIP.

    I use VOIP to talk to good ol' europe, since the minute rate is $1 + to e.g. Hungary, and almost 2$ the other way.

    ICE people do not like to work. They like to strike, and every time they mention privatizing the company, they go to the street and there is no service (there is phone, but no customer service, so if a line breaks or whatever pain you have, you are fsckd)

    Well but hey, there is no snowstorms here, just occasional quakes ...

    Ahm why they won't put it thru? The casino industry gives 1000s of jobs to students, so do other companyes who USE VOIP.

    I am not worried ... on the other hand: I just tunnel it to my server on an unusual port as it was streaming whatever, and they can come and look really close and still see nothing :)

  • Funny telcos (and not just the states ones) (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Pac ( 9516 ) <paulo...candido@@@gmail...com> on Tuesday March 01, 2005 @10:31AM (#11812567)
    Telefonica (the Spanish group who also owns Terra, some banks and more) is probably yhe largest Brazilian phone company nowadays. They also own the most popular broadband service, Speedy. Until last year their service contract stated you couldn't use VoIP because "it consumed too much band".

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