The government of Saudi Arabia is seeking to regulate local use of Internet-based voice and messaging services such as Skype and Whatsapp.
Such moves are not unheard of. In fact, outright blocking of VoIP has happened in numerous countries, at numerous times. Skype in the past has been blocked in the United Arab Emirates. Even Sweden's Telia has said it might block use of Skype on mobile devices.
But blocking is only one problem faced by over the top voice applications, In other cases, over the top voice apps face regulation as providers of traditional voice services, moves which in most cases would destroy or vastly impair the over the top VoIP value proposition.
Over time, the effectiveness of over the top VoIP blocking is questionable. But that never seems to stop some regulators or service providers from trying.
Tuesday, April 2, 2013
Saudis to Regulate Skype?
Gary Kim has been a digital infra analyst and journalist for more than 30 years, covering the business impact of technology, pre- and post-internet. He sees a similar evolution coming with AI. General-purpose technologies do not come along very often, but when they do, they change life, economies and industries.
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