Consumer Law

Is Skype Dead in China?

By Brian Wolfman

According to the Washington Post, "China has moved to ban all VoIP services except two state-owned networks, China Unicom and China Telecom, likely making Internet telephony services such as Skype illegal to use." If that's true, and if the ban works, that would be a major impediment to free discussion with people in China, although email would still be available of course. Last April, I used Skype from various locations in China for audio communications to contacts in many U.S. locations. Access was easy and 1.5 cents per minute -- that is, nearly free for a middle-class U.S. user like myself. The Post quotes a university professor in Beijing, who noted a political problem in making Skype illegal in China:

Skype is the market leader, but there is also MSN and Gmail Talk. The children of Chinese government officials, who are studying abroad, use these services to call home, so I do not think anyone is going to cut the lines.

Full post as published by CL&P Blog on January 01, 2011 (boomark / email).