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."
As anal as France is.... (Score:4, Interesting)
While France has many many funny laws and ideas, many of which I think are bogus. But on this one IMO they are right. If Skype connected directly at the user to a telephone then IMO it would be a different picture. However, SKYPE acts on behalf of the user and hence they are doing the same thing as a telco, albeit not a completely telco.
I am all for it. (Score:4, Interesting)
Possible response (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Then Leave (Score:5, Interesting)
"France taxes the crap out of its citizens so we should have seen this coming."
which has nothing to do with this issue.
But hay, just jump on your ignorant bandwagon and toot the crazy horn.
France's person income tax is 0% to 75%..not just 75%. and with Bouclier Fiscal I don't think very many people, if any, pay 75% since it needs to be 1.2million pr more with 2 adults. Not only to the France have a different word for everything, they also have a different tax system.
Perspective:
If you were a family of 2 adults and 3 children making 100,000 Euros you tax rate would be 14%
France taxes, in the real world, are on par, and sometime less then the US taxes..and they have more services.
And of cours,e saying ;'high taxes' is pretty meaningless.
What are the service you get? whats the VALUE overall
Re:2 words (Score:3, Interesting)
Music therapy.
You both need it to take care of your issue and to learn about gov't regulations introduced now to stop competition and keep prices up, prevent (lower income) people from making income in that field. [ij.org]
But ifÂSB 1437Âpasses, anyone who wants to become a music therapist will face some onerous barriers: an applicant would need a bachelorâ(TM)s degree in music therapy from a program approved by the American Music Therapy Association (AMTA), at least 1,200 hours of clinical training, and 900 hours of internship experience. Practicing or calling oneself a music therapist without a government permission slip would be criminalized, with violators facing up to aÂ$500 fine and/or 30 days imprisonment.
That's what gov't regulations are all about, that and taking ppl for their money. Providing an innovating service ppl like? Ha, we are gov't, it would really be sad if you didn't pay up and something bad happened to your business.
Re:Why Silicon Valley did not happen in France (Score:1, Interesting)
Regulations designed to protect the incumbent status quo, rather than serving the needs of real users, is the kind of thing that has kept France out of the picture for innovation. France must import their innovation.
As someone who was a US based IT employee of a French company at one time, I totally agree with this. While in general my French colleagues were good people and I still have fond memories of them, the word "arrogance" doesn't begin to describe how they feel about everything. Honestly, you'd have thought they invented every computer technology there was from the way they acted in our company. And while they've got a plausible cover story about why they want to regulate Skype, I strongly suspect that in reality France Telecom complained about how Skype is sending calls "for free over our domestic network and costing us money" and this is the real reason for the sudden regulatory interest. The relationship between certain very large French businesses and the government is under the table and quite probably in violation of various EU laws, but that relationship exists nonetheless. This is just more evidence of it.
Just remember that under Napoleon, France got nationalized telegraph service and the ITU. Later, France got Minitel. It's not about importing innovation, it's more about having an orthogonal view on what needs to be innovated, and who the innovations are accountable to. Seems to me that France should really be embracing open source with open arms -- I bet the only thing holding them back is that so much open source material has already been created by dirty English speakers ;)
Re:Why Silicon Valley did not happen in France (Score:5, Interesting)
This comment coming from the land of the porkbarrel project is pathetically laughable...
Re:Why Silicon Valley did not happen in France (Score:5, Interesting)
Seems to me that France should really be embracing open source with open arms -- I bet the only thing holding them back is that so much open source material has already been created by dirty English speakers ;)
The entire French police force is slowly but surely switching to Linux and more generally Open Source software, as are all public schools (although Microsoft did and still does try its usually dirty tricks to prevent that). The entire national assembly (main house of parliament) entirely runs on Linux, from Desktop machines for the députés to servers hosting the live feed/on demand videos. Open Source projects (originating from companies as well as universities and such) regularly obtain grants/funds from official bodies (and in fact, creating an Open Source project is a very favorable point to obtain a lot of those innovation funds). Strong recommendations have been emitted to use only open and standard file formats in all administration, and several projects for laws have been proposed to enforce this, as well as the use of Open Source software in all public administration (not sure any of those were actually passed, though). Skype is also officially forbidden in high-level universities and official research organizations, essentially because it is closed source and thus theoretically prone to potential spying/security issues.
Seems to me that France is *already* embracing Open Source with open arms.
Re:As anal as France is.... (Score:3, Interesting)
I'm making a knee-to-the-nuts reaction to France(not the people, the government) and any other morons who try to attach charges to emerging technologies in order to sustain their old tech(which I didn't miss, did you?). Kind of like buggywhip manufacturers whining for a tax on automobiles.
No, screw them. Phones are bad,clunky and OLD! Their business model is tired. The phone companies should be regulated till their stockholders give up, then be absorbed by newer technologies with better ideas. If this is the best the French can do, Fire them and replace them with Germans.
What good is an ally who has to HIRE their army? My first boots were my oldest, but they're far too small and worn to be of any use.
So go scratch your ass , til you figure it out.
Re:As anal as France is.... (Score:1, Interesting)
Invented the computer,
How many computers are made in the UK these days?
invented radar, invented the jet engine, invented wireless detection tech, invented parallel computing, makes the faster car on the planet, most F1 companies are also based in the south east of England to use the best car engineers in the world.
Has no British owned car manufacturers
The UK also doesn't stink of garlic
Because no-one knows how to cook
and doesn't grind to a halt when 3 farmers "march" in the capital demanded more free EU money.
'cos all your farmers are EU subsidised aristos.