International Status of VoIP

It's hard to imagine that communication can be dangerous. Talking to another person is one of the most basic functions of a social animal like man and yet it seems that countries all over the world feel that pure unrestricted person to person communication is something to be feared and regulated. While the United States and many other European countries are dealing with VoIP in a sensible manner, there are many others like India and Saudi Arabia who fear the implications VoIP will have on existing legal and economic systems. In this article we take a look at why VoIP is so dangerous to some.

Security Reasons
Traditional telephones are a well understood system with properly standardized ways of doing things. When govt. agencies want to tap a telephone system, they know how to do it and have the legal tools necessary to do so. Moreover, the system was designed so that physical locations are tied to phone numbers and so it's easy for security agencies to both tap conversations as well as get a fix on where they are calling from.

VoIP complicates these procedures. There's no standard way to use VoIP and so a person who chooses to have their voice data encrypted can effectively transmit 100% private information with no chance of eavesdropping. This is possible because VoIP is an Internet application which is remarkably flexible. Organizations and people can modify it to suit their unique needs and this is something that irritates governments and security agencies.

Economic Reasons
VoIP is disruptive. It's model is such that it can allow for calls which are entirely free and of better quality with improved features compared to regular phones. In price conscious markets, this can be a devastating blow to traditional telcos. Because of this, many governments around the world have decided to regulate VoIP to protect the interests of these firms. In a few countries like India, progress is happening, but slowly. Open countries will gradually gravitate towards open markets whereas dictatorships and quasi dictatorships offer no guarantee that this will happen.

Sometimes of course, telcos themselves try and wield their power to prevent VoIP from getting a foothold like in the US. Depending on the strategies they use and the legal environment in which they operate, they can stifle VoIP as well or even better than the government themselves.

The VoIP industry is evolving. As it goes forward and more and more people adopt it as a means to communicate with each other, we'll begin to see how countries change their laws in response to these developments.