Rhetoric has been always a very powerful tool in promoting both policy and business agendas.\u00a0 Russian telcos are now putting the old-good argument of security in promoting legislation that may allow them to succeed where their European and other colleagues have failed.<\/p>\n
It seems that all around the world the telcos feel threatened by Voice over IP (VoIP<\/a>) applications that run on their infrastructure and offer free of charge voice services.\u00a0 Skype<\/a> is the most commonly used example in this debate and the first one to absorb the fire.\u00a0 Only recently, the European telecos tried to argue<\/a> for unfair competition and asked to discriminate<\/a> against the use of VoIP on their networks.\u00a0 The European Commission took a firm stand against it arguing<\/a> for principles of net-neutrality also on mobile networks.\u00a0 In the US, AT&T, together with Apple, work against VoIP applications such as Skype<\/a> and Google Voice<\/a> to be used on the iPhones.\u00a0 It will be now up to the FCC to take a stand<\/a> on that issue.\u00a0 Finally, the Israeli leading mobile service provider, Cellecom, is also seeking ways<\/a> of limiting its users\u2019 access to VoIP and some other technologies, under the slogan<\/a> of \u201cquality of service.\u201d\u00a0 The Israeli Ministry of Communication actually took a pro net neutrality stand, but the argument<\/a> is still going on.<\/p>\n In Russia, however, the local industry decided to take a shortcut.\u00a0 Instead of appealing to amorphous concepts such as \u201cfairness\u201d in competition or \u201cquality of service\u201d it turned to a more basic instinct \u2013 fear<\/a>.\u00a0 According to this article<\/a>, Russian telcos have warned the Kremlin that:<\/p>\n \u201c\u2026the foreign-made VoIP software, easily downloaded from the Internet, is a threat to national security because it is resistant to eavesdropping by Russia\u2019s intelligence agencies.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n To make things a bit spicier, they also added some nationalism.\u00a0 The lobbying group was quoted saying that:<\/p>\n \u201cThe majority of brands operating in Russia, such as Skype and Icq, are of foreign origin and therefore we need to ensure the defense of national producers in this sector\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n While some civil rights activists are concerned with the state openly talking about spying on people, others view it a bit more pragmatically.\u00a0 In a recent hearing on the subject it was estimated<\/a> that in about 3 years 40% of voice traffic in Russia will be VoIP.\u00a0 This creates a significant<\/a> incentive<\/a> for the industry to cooperate on legislation that \u201cwill bring order\u201d to the VoIP market.\u00a0 Indeed such an effort is currently underway in Russia.<\/p>\n There was limited<\/a>, but critical<\/a> reaction on this topic in the mainstream Russian media and\u00a0 even the blogsphere reacted only on the margines; some expressed<\/a> concerns<\/a>, others healthy sarcasm<\/a>, and other scepticism<\/a> about the substance of the story.\u00a0\u00a0 While it remains to be seen what regulation of VoIP will eventualy turn out to be, the variety of arguments for such regulations is certainly interesting to watch.<\/p>\n