The Hindu Business Line : 39 foreign Net phone firms under DoT scanner

New Delhi, Feb. 22 The Department of Telecom has issued orders to block Internet telephony services being offered by around 39 foreign firms in the country.

All the Internet Service Providers have been asked to block these Web sites since Indian laws permit only licensed operators to offer Net telephony services.

There are three types of calls which can be made using Internet telephony services. Subscribers will be allowed to make calls between one computer and another computer; between a computer and a mobile or a fixed line phone, and between mobile or fixed line phones. These calls can be made to any part of the world. The advantage for customers is that they can make long distance calls at local call charges.

However, in India, only unified access licence holders are permitted to offer all three types of Net telephony services. ISPs are allowed to offer only PC-to-PC calls and PC- to-mobile/fixed line that too on international calls.

Foreign net service providers, which have been blacklisted includes voiptalk.org, sipgate.co.uk, voiplus.net, and deltathree.com

In a notice issued to the ISPs, the telecom enforcement and monitoring cell of the DoT said, “It was found during inspection that many of the corporate customers were using the Internet Telephony services of the hosts functioning from abroad. These operators are not licensed to operate from Indian network the consequence of which are grave security threat to the nation and heavy loss to the Government.”

“It is requested of all the ISPs to implement the order in the interest of the security of the nation. Further it is also clarified that this operation should not be mistaken with the routine content blocking mechanism, where certain Web sites are blocked due to malicious effects and content on the recommendations of the security agencies,” the DoT letter said.