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by Jason S, India

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Looks like VoIP services may be banned yet again in India

Sep 17, 2009 14:18

VoIP was legalized for use in India only a few years ago (August 2008 to be precise--TRAI recommended the lifting of restrictions on Internet telephony in the India), and now it is again in the news as likely to be banned. This time, it is the India's premier Intelligence Bureau (IB) that has asked the Ministry of Communications and Information Technology, which is responsible for all things related to communications in India, to simply block all VoIP and Internet telephony services in the country. This is until the Department of Telecommunications (DoT) finds methods to trace and snoop on VoIP calls.

This directive comes just days after DoT ordered all mobile telephony operators to take out the service of all IMEI-less handsets mainly originating from China. The Government fears that such devices could easily be used by terrorists.

The main reason for banning VoIP calls is due to the fact that the Caller Line Identification (CLI) parameters are not generally set for such calls originating from abroad, which makes it quite impossible to identify even the country where the caller is, let alone the exact location. This is sending jitters through the intelligence quarters of India. So it's DoT's new task to find a solution such that the transmission of CLI from abroad can be intercepted by other means as done by other countries overseas.

Currently, there are 30-plus operators in India that provide VoIP services. If the ban is implemented, there is surely going to be a lot of noise among businesses and in IT circles that rely deeply on VoIP for their day-to-day operations.

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About Jason S

Jason S is an ardent Web surfer and a technologist. He works in Bangalore with a leading software company. His passion includes blogging about the various technologies and interesting stuff that he comes across everyday, and also trying out new technologies, gadgets and software. He has a personal tech blog named The Most Authoritative Technology Blog. He loves networking with friends & the tech community at large and can be found at LinkedIn.