Skype illegal in South Africa? |
Loading ...Telkom - South Africa’s incumbent telco - has warned that consumers using VoIP could face legal action because it believes the use of such software is against the law.
Niklas Zennstrom, Skype’s CEO and co-founder says this isn’t the case and that Skype is not illegal because it is not using the public telephone numbering plan. The US and EU have both identified that programs like and including Skype are not telephony. If I was a resident in South Africa, I’d probably cease and desist using it until some sort of official legal ruling is made.
Meanwhile, Skype is approaching 10 million downloads and is still in beta. Their plans of getting out of beta “within three months”, as I was once told while it was in early development, did not come to pass.
Related Skype entries:
- Skype VoIP adds conference calling
- Skype version 0.95: add your own custom ringtones
- Global IP Sound Supplies Voice Processing Software to Skype
- New Skype goodies and articles
- Skype eclipses 20,000 users online while Wisconsin tackles VoIP issue with Packet8
- Skype tops 16,000 users online and 240,000+ downloads
Hello,both my cousin and I would love to communicate more often via telephone,my advice to her family? get SKYPE. She stated that as her family live in Gauteng,South Africa they cannot download the software required. They are subscribers of mweb.co.za as their ISP,we regularly e-mail each other and all our relatives in ZA, we actually thought that SKYPE would resolve our telephone connections? What Now?
Regards,
John
Comment by John Smith — May 12, 2006 @ 2:11 pm PST
VoIP is now legal in SA. As from Feb 2005.
Comment by Stephen — November 13, 2006 @ 12:14 pm PST