Ethiopia to send Skype users to the slammer The Ethiopian government has outlawed Voice Over Internet Protocol (VoIP) services. Those who disobey and continue to use programs such as Skype face up to 15 years in chokey. The law, passed last month, is said to help provide more national security. National security? Don't make me laugh. It's undoubtedly an effort to …
Glad to see they have their priorities right. Just because they act like Europeans defending their politically entrenched national telekom doesn't mean they are developed. I am sure the numerous hungry children in the country are grateful for their leaders ignoring the boring stuff like food production and malaria eradication to prop up the local rich/strong man.
This goes on a lot more than people think. I used to work for a company who specializes in billing leakage prevention & our systems are installed in 43 countries. Not all of them use it actively but the ability is there & they have constant data coming in on whose using VOIP, how often, and where many of the calls go. Even Skype calls can be followed, port hopping was solved ages ago.
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.. despite it's own telecom provider routing a bulk of its own traffic using it. You get a message stating that it volatiles their cultural and religious values etc. (?!). However they have become more upfront about it, stating that VoIP providers haven't helped build up the infrastructure for voice communication, so yes, they want to keep the duopoly (there are just 2 telecoms providers) going.
Even with the ban people are busy using proxies etc. to by pass it, but they'd only raid net caffes who tended to offer it at a price to customer, as far as I know. They were also busy blocking the proxies as they appeared, just like a cat and mouse game.
Obviously call costs are exorbitant, so all those poor ex-pat builders and road sweeps etc. who can't bring their families over, then have to pay for these expensive calls to stay in touch with their families, nice! Broadband costs are also sky high compared to Britain.
Bashing monopolies is all well and good, but are you sure its not just that they are incapable of tapping VoIP calls?
Ethiopia is a poor country and the equipment to listen in on VoIP calls is fairly expensive. Regular phone calls can be tapped for a the cost of a cheap telephone and access to switch bank where VoIP tapping requires
International telephone call termination charges are often one of the biggest sources of hard currency revenues in developing countries. Indeed these, often very high, charges have been the source of a lot of settlement disputes. This, not just domestic revenues, will be at the heart of this sort of decision. Expect several other developing countries to seek to protect their revenue streams the same way.
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