France Demands Skype Register As a Telco 209
jfruh writes "Skype made a name for itself by largely bypassing the infrastucture — and the costs, and the regulations — of the legacy telecommunications industry. But now the French telecom regulator wants to change that, at least in France. At issue is not the service's VoIP offering, but rather the Skype Out service that allows users to dial phones on traditional networks. Regulators say that this service necessitates that Skype face the same regulations as other telecoms."
I live in France, and see no need for this... (Score:4, Informative)
OK, they brought us the Minitel. Er, thanks...
I've been here for more than 20 years, and have really enjoyed being financially fucked in the ass by the France Telecom monopoly, swiftly followed by the FT/SFR duopoly, and then Bouygues came along and, tada!, we had the same old...overpriced, underserviced.
Fortunately, after years off battling the well-captured 'regulators', Free has finally got things moving somewhat in the right direction.
My point? Skype buys its out calling service from these fine, regulated companies. It is not a telco in the traditional sense, so leave it alone.
Btw, not a Skype/MS shill, although I freely admit i have found it incredibly useful over the years, and it has saved me and my family a ton of money. Right now moving to Jitsi...it's getting there. (Waiting for Android and iOs clients, please)
Re:I am all for it. (Score:5, Informative)
You are right - I just checked mine (CallCentric), and their rate is 0.0198 USD to France, while Skype is 0.023 USD.
Re:I live in France, and see no need for this... (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Correct (Score:4, Informative)
Because both ends of the landline call need to be regulated. It has nothing to do with the computer aspect of it.
Re:Correct (Score:5, Informative)
Skype in this case is taking the place of an inter-exchange carrier as described generally in:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interexchange_carrier [wikipedia.org]
In the US, these entities are in fact regulated, and I imagine its the same in France. If they're acting in the same fashion (but with slightly different physical characteristics), why wouldn't those same laws apply to them? If you want fully de-regulate the long distance phone providers as being telecommunications entities that's one thing, but applying one set of rules because its half tethered off the internet doesn't change the nature of what these companies do.
Call Termination (Score:4, Informative)
France can always prevent call termination on France's POTs numbers.
Re:As anal as France is.... (Score:5, Informative)
IP Telephony providers have had very little problem complying with this archaic regulation.
The clincher is that it's just as difficult to tell where a call originates when it's on a mobile network. You can, at best, tell what tower it is on. Not much use on a block with a high-rise apartment building.
With IP, the theory goes:
1. If the call originates from an IP Address that is fixed (eg. DSL) in location, give that location.
2. If it's not, but you know the address of the IP, give that location
3. Otherwise, give the billing address of the customer's service.
The problem in Australia is that the database isn't at all dynamic. You put the address in and in a few days it's available to emergency services - so, when someone calls from a mobile phone (that's not on the telstra network) or an IP Phone, emergency services get the billing address.
IMHO - If Skypeout is achieved by making international calls into France, then France can go jump. But if they've got a carrier interface (SS7 gateways and the like) inside the country's borders then they can put up with the same laws that the other Telco's in France (ie. their local competition) do.
Re:As anal as France is.... (Score:1, Informative)
Lets hate the french FREEEEDOM FRIESSS
Americans sicken me.
Re:As anal as France is.... (Score:3, Informative)
Dude, there's a lot of Americans and most of them are great.
Re:As anal as France is.... (Score:3, Informative)
France should turn itself over to England, who seem to be sensible and close enough to babysit these silly pricks.
The UK? That dead-end backwater. The place that is so sensible that it's planning to institute a tax on poor people who have "too many bedrooms"?
French GDP/Capita 44,007 USD
UK GDP/Capita 38,811 USD
What has the UK done since 1945?
UK electricity ~ 20% nuclear
France ~ 80% nuclear
UK high speed rail lines: 1 (which goes to France)
France: around 6
UK space effort - launched one 66Kg satellite in 1971
France - Arianespace
UK exports (2011) $479,200,000,000 (10th in world)
France: $589,700,000,000 (5th in world)
Current account balance deficit (smaller is better!)
UK (#2 after USA) 162.973 billion USD
France (#4) 117.676 billion USD