[wsfii-discuss] FW: Free VoIP.

[Dave Hughes]

Mahabir:

I am only surprised that you wonder why Voip is illegal in some
countries,including Nepal. And where it is 'free.'

Remember I said in my earlier advice, that you need to understand WHO is
harmed by 'unlicensed' wireless. Same for VOIP.

If VOIP becomes 'free' and 'legal' by Nepalese government decision that is
taking money right out of the Nepalese owned Telephone Company pockets. And
thus out of the Nepalese Treasury. As wireless and VOIP grows it will put
the Telephone Company out of business! Surely you understand that is a
THREAT to a large Nepalese operation, and the jobs it provides. 

I doubt if any country has deliberately ruled that VOIP is 'free.' Why?
Because (1) VOIP is very new Internet capabilities (2) it directly, where it
is used, COMPETES with telephone companies EVERYWHERE including the United
States. American private (but regulated) telephone companies hate VOIP. It
is already harming them. And ordinary wired Telephone Systems cannot handle
VOIP. The only exception is that, if you have the right software - like
Skype and a PC which only uses 36kbs of bandwidth while circuit switched
telephone lines have up to 56kbps, one can sometimes make a PPP protocol
call over the Telephone Company lines, which you pay for monthly- and have a
dialup connection to some dialup Internet service, THEN you can make a VOIP
call. But it is NOT free, because (1) you have to pay for your telephone
company line and (2) you have to pay the Internet provider. So only after
you pay BOTH of those is VOIP 'free'. AND, the Telephone Company, while not
objecting to that, REALLY gets bent out of shape if you THEN call LONG
DISTANCE AND INTERNATIONAL by VOIP, because you are NOT paying the Telephone
Company the big bucks they get for Long Distance, voice telephone calls! 

I can now, and routinely, call Tsering 'free' by Skype. Computer to
computer, via his satellite Internet to my Internet connected computer
(which is not free for either of us)

SO the big traditional US Telephone companies hate VOIP! Everywhere in the
world. And now they are trying to get the US government (FCC and Congress)
to force anyone offering VOIP to pay a surcharge called the Universal
Service Fund (USF) on top of whatever they pay for an Internet connection.
Far from offering FREE Voip, even the US Government is heading for CHARGING
for VOIP separately! Even if the connection is wireless and bypasses all
local telephone company circuits

And I think that is the reaction in a lot of other countries, ESPECIALLY
national government owned Telephone Companies, to VOIP. You have a difficult
task to convince Nepal to take money away from ITS telephone company to
provide 'free' VOIP. Regardless of the Common good for Education as you are
doing.   

The only solution, that will work Politically in Nepal, in my opinion, is
either to get the national government to adopt, as the US has, a long time
ago, a subsidy in which Business, and central City telephone service pays a
surcharge - more than rural folks - and that money is paid to the rural
telephone company to permit it to charge LESS to its customers. Or, if VOIP
is only available at schools for education of children, but NOT available to
businesses, then, just as the US enacted, a 'School, Library' fund for
Internet Connections to those schools. Even that is very controversial. 
        
But as I said, 'free VOIP' threatens the Nepalese PTT. You have to think of
ways to get around that, by compromise if necessary, or some brilliant way
that the Telephone Company does NOT lose lots of revenue, and future growth,
but your people get connected. Tough, worldwide problem. And Nepalese
Parliament members don't want to have to CHOOSE between you, Himanchal, AND
the National Telephone Company.

First rule of advocacy politics. NEVER force politicians to make difficult
win-lose decisions. Find a way for them to make BOTH parties happy. Or at
least less sad. YOU solve THEIR Political problem with a clever idea or
scheme they never thought of. And then give them credit. I've been doing
that for decades. Play to Win-Win, not Win-Lose. Or you will lose more often
than win when you are up against vested interests. The Nepalese Telephone
company is a vested interest. It's a Sacred Yak!

The only reason you, and Tsering, and Thame School and Yeti Airlines have
gotton away with 'illegal' VOIP, is because the Nepalese Government barely
understands it, AND it is being done so far away from Kathmandu that nobody
is enforcing it. Believe you me I had a hard time getting Cisco Voip
telephones through Customs without bribes in 1994. The customs agents didn't
understand what those black boxes were - they looked like ordinary
telephone. 

But they are learning.     

Dave Hughes
dave at oldcolo.com

-----Original Message-----
From: Mahabir Pun [mailto:mahabir at himanchal.org] 
Sent: Sunday, July 30, 2006 8:14 AM
To: Jim Forster
Cc: mahabir at himanchal.org; Howard Greenstein; Gordon Cook; Dave Hughes; Tom
Munnecke; Malcolm Odell; DavidHughes; JohnMaloney; David S. Isenberg
Subject: I am also looking for information on VoIP.

Hello All;

Today I got letter from Nepal Telecom promising to provide 20 telephone
lines in Pokhara for our project. It is the city where we have base
station for the network. We will connect those telephone lines to our
Wireless network and provide telephone services to the villages in remote
areas. I know that the telephone calls will take some bandwidth of the
network, but I am sure that it still will be good enough for Internet
connection and for other purposes. If the network gets slower, we will put
better radios for the backbone. Now we have Canopies BH-20 for the
backbone.

Right now, VoIP is illegal in Nepal. Therefore I am also lobbying to make
VoIP calls free. It is because our project uses VoIP for live
tele-teaching and telemedicine purpose. We also use VoIP to connect the
call from the remote villages to landlines of Nepal Telecom to make calls
outside the network.

Could you please tell me if VoIP call is free in those countries where 2.4
GHz and 5.7 GHz bands are license free? If the government in some of the
countries have made it illegal to use, why is that.

The reason I am asking is because I want to present the government the
list of the countries where is is free.

Thanks.

Mahabir


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