China: Foreign VoIP Services are Illegal (affecting 450M users)

   

People's Daily Online reports that "The Chinese regulator has declared Internet phone services other than those provided by China Telecom and China Unicom as illegal, which is expected to make services like Skype unavailable in the country".

See "VoIP decision means Skype now illegal" - here.

"The Ministry of Industry and Information Technology said all VoIP (voice over Internet protocol) phone services are illegal on the Chinese mainland, except those provided by telecommunications carriers China Telecom and China Uniom. The ministry gave no timetable on when the ruling takes effect .. The decision is expected to make Skype, UUCall and other similar services unavailable in China"

In related news, a recent report (here) states that "The number of Chinese netizens had risen to 450 million by the end of November, up 20.3 percent year on year, Wang Chen (picture), head of China's State Council Information Office, said Thursday..Wang said China hopes to work with other countries to safeguard online security and boost Internet development and supervision"

See - "Is it Possible to Block Skype with DPI? " - here.