VOIP and SIP News

While one door closes on Voice over Internet Protocol, another opens. China VoIP may be illegal to all but the approved state carriers, but UAE VoIP is becoming more widely accessible.

The Telecommunications Regulatory Authority (TRA), which regulates VoIP for the United Arab Emirates, is now allowing licensees to offer VoIP services.

The TRA has stated that only regulated licensees such as Etisalat and du may provide VoIP services, although other parties may approach the licencees to work with them.

This is a step forward from a previous ban on VoIP services in much of the UAE and the Middle East.

VoIP services are defined as an end-to-end voice service or an additional feature to a connectivity service.

Executive director at the TRA, Mohammed Gheyath, said: "We believe that this regulatory policy will provide opportunities to benefit from VoIP services in keeping with the market demands.

He added: "The TRA looks forward to the introduction of VoIP services which respond to business and consumer needs."

Meanwhile Mohamed Al Ghanim, the director general of the TRA, explained that the rules protect telecom customers, as the TRA can only help customers of registered services.

He also said that the TRA had been working with Skype and other VoIP providers to potentially establish their services in the UAE.

Last week China sought to clarify what it says is a misunderstanding about its position on Voice over Internet protocol in the country.

Most news outlets believed that this would lead to an attempt to ban the Internet calling service Skype in order to protect the state telecoms carriers.

The Ministry of Industry and Information Technology has now said it is supportive of Internet-based telephone services as long as they are legal.

Wen Ku, the director of the ministry technology department, said: "The ministry is not against Internet-based telephone services, but only those operating illegally in the country."

He added: "VoIP is a worldwide trend in the telecom industry and we are not against that technology."

Of course in China it is always difficult to tell what is legal. After all this is a nation where public access to Google is censored.

So far there is no sign of any ban taking place and China's Skype users have reported business as usual.

Ministry spokesman Wang Lijian told the China Daily newspaper that the "whole issue is over". Heexplained that the purpose of the crackdown was to target online fraud and crime.

Nevertheless only two companies have been allowed to trial VoIP in four Chinese cities. It is probable that only their VoIP services will be deemed legal.

That will give China Unicom and China Telecom a virtual monopoly while getting rid of other Internet phone services that have sprung up in the meantime.

Kan Kaili, a professor at the Beijing University of Posts and Telecommunications, said: "I think the authorities will be extremely cautious in dealing with the regulations to avoid raising international concerns."

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Skype is moving on from recent unfortunate events with the acquisition of the video internet service Qik.

According to reports the company could pay anything from $100 - $150 million to acquire the fast-growing mobile video software provider.

That will be a step in the right direction after the recent Skype service outage which saw them offer compensation to millions of customers.

In only one year Qik has proved very popular by amassing more than 5 million users. In the meantime it went into partnership with huge companies such as T-Mobile, Samsung, Nokia and Sprint.

Buying Qik makes sense for Skype as the companies have complementary services. The announcement was made at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas with private terms expected to conclude by the end of the month.

Skype’s CEO Tony Bates stated: “The Qik team has delivered exceptional video experiences for its mobile partners and millions of end users across a range of devices.

"Skype’s software enables an estimated 25% of the world’s international long distance voice calling minutes, and approximately 40% of those Skype-to-Skype calls are happening over video. Qik’s deep engineering capabilities and strong mobile relationships will be an impressive complementary fit with Skype.”

Anyone wondering what the concept of net neutrality means for VoIP
will be intrigued by MetroPCS’s discounted 4G LTE mobile broadband plans.

They are an example of wireless Internet Service Providers charging consumers different rates for content depending on who produces it.

A $40 a month tier includes unlimited talk, text and 4G Web browsing with unlimited YouTube access.

For $50 per month you also get VoIP, international text messaging, turn-by-turn navigation, corporate e-mail, mobile instant messaging and 1 GB of additional data access.

At $60 per month, users get unlimited data access and MetroSTUDIO premium content such as 18 video-on-demand channels and audio downloads.

Basically that means you will not get broad unlimited internet access to things like VoIPSkype unless you can afford the top two tiers. And while you can access Youtube videos, other video services may be inaccessible.

This may contravene the new FCC net neutrality guidelines, according to Gigaom, and the organisation will be looking into MetroPCS’s pricing tiers.

Spokesperson Drew Crowell said: "MetroPCS is not prepared to discuss the net neutrality implications of our latest service plans."

“We saw that YouTube is one of the main ways that our customers get multimedia content and we wanted to make sure that content was available to them.

He added: "The $50 and $60 plans are about choice and providing options to meet the needs of our consumers.”

If MetroPCS is granted its way it could have a big impact on the future of mobile broadband and VoIP.

The media has been awash with reports of a VoIP ban in China but so far it has not taken effect.

While newspapers and websites have singled out Skype for special treatment this is not in fact the case and the government ban will extend to all illegal voice over Internet protocol telephone services.

The China Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) stated on its website. “Currently our ministry is working with relevant departments on striking against illegal Voice over Internet Protocol services, and we are collecting clues from the public.”

The website listed a phone number that locals could call to report illegal VoIP, which is seen as a threat to the state telecoms companies.

Skype operates openly in China through TOM-Skype and a venture known as Tel-Online Ltd, which is 51% owned by TOM Online and 49% owned by Skype.

Despite there being an estimated 88 million Skype users in China, only two million of them are connecting to Skype on a monthly basis

Skype stated. “Users in China can access Skype via TOM Online. All operations and access are normal, and operations in China conform with national regulations. Nothing has changed.”

China VoIP has become a booming industry recently, one which the government is watching closely.

British Telecom will promote VoIP in rural Britain by giving six communities access to high-speed broadband.

The move follows a BT competition to see which parts of the country were most desperate to have excellent internet access.

That is in turn part of a wider UK government initiative to allow all parts of the United Kingdom to have broadband.

Culture secretary Jeremy Hunt has said that he wants to deliver high-speed broadband to rural areas by 2015.

The idea is to give a boost to small and medium-sized country businesses which would benefit from using the Internet and services such as voiceover internet protocol. The scheme will even receive funding from the television licence fee.

The six communities are Baschurch in Shropshire, Whitchurch in Hampshire, Blewbury in Oxfordshire, Madingley in Cambridgeshire, Innerleithen in Tweeddale and Caxton in Cambridgeshire.

Originally it was only planned to offer broadband to five communities but the scheme was incredibly popular so BT increased it to six.

They will each get a superfast broadband hub with download speeds of up to 40 megabits per second by the beginning of 2012.

Campaign co-ordinator for the Blewbury exchange, Chris Whatmore, said: “With proper, future-proof broadband, Blewbury can attract people or businesses that need and depend on high-speed data connectivity and VoIP.”

Two of the companies looking at UK broadband access opportunities are BT and Virgin Media.

They are testing in which areas of the country it is practical to lay down fibre optic cables.

Nimbuzz and VoX have joined forces to offer a Cloud-based VoIP application for the iPhone.

The application will work with SIP standards. Pervasip's CIO Mark Richards said: "We are very excited to become the first American premier partner to integrate Nimbuzz with our cloud-based SIP mobile calling software."

VoX Mobile Out is embedded in Nimbuzz so that iPhone smartphone users can make low cost calls within the United States.

The Nimbuzz Chief Executive Officer Evert Jaap Lugt said: "The VoX and Nimbuzz service offerings give users freedom and power.

"Wherever they are, they can choose how they communicate, across any device and network."

The VoX Communications new mobile VoIP is availble for the Apple iPhone or via a calling plan for just $4.95 per month.