A few phone calls to a number of ISPs and to Jordan Telecom confirmed that there is indeed work underway to block Skype. The request, as we have been told by one of the ISPs, came from the TRC.
This is being done on the grounds that Skype is ‘not licensed’ as a telecom operator to provide voice services in Jordan! Welcome to the telecom stone age..
This is very bad for Jordanian consumers and for Jordan’s image of being an open, tech friendly country. We were making fun of the UAE’s blocking of Skype. Etisalat was the telecom monopoly there and they said “damn, we’re going to squeeze every last cent of revenue out of the long distance call market, until there is competition and then we’ll open our network again”..
Now, we in Jordan, were we supposedly have liberalized our telecom market, we get this act of blockage.
It’s also an act of CENSORSHIP. The skype.com domain is simply no longer accessible. This has never happened in Jordan (with the exception of the banning of the US based Arab Times newspaper). Who has the right to forbid us from accessing web sites?
This is economically driven censorship. Very bad!
Skype is still working as I write this, but I feel that the quality has been degraded already. I don’t know wether this is due to something else or due to the blockage of certain ports.
This raises the questions. Will the ban of VoIP services only affect Skype (selective banning??) or other services. What about Google Talk, Gizmo Project, or for that matter Apple’s iChat.
What about the customers of services like Vonage and other similar services?
It seems the TRC just can’t deal with the digital age. Digital technology means that sound, images, text, video can be turned into zeros and one and sent across the network. Banning this for ‘regulatory’ reasons is simply trying to hold back the technological tide.
The TRC is forbidding the independent sale of VoIP phone adapters. It has prevented licensed operators from offering Jordanian consumers US based phone numbers. It is supposed to be encouraging competition and innovation not curtailing them.
Cheap and free international calling have enable numerous Jordanian businesses to do better business with the outside world. Also, services like Skype are saving Jordanian consumers money when they stay in touch with friends and family abroad.
After years of a liberal internet policy it seems that Jordan is going backwards, blocking services and censoring certain sites. What a shame!
Comments
18 responses to “Confirmed! Skype is getting blocked in Jordan..”
There’s something that should be done about this. I mean TRC is supposed to be all about FAIR COMPETITION!
anyway, you can always use anonymizers…
Agreed, and I also agree that we shouldn’t stay quiet. Any ideas as to what we could do? Perhaps spread email campaigns or something?
this was my bad news for the day… Great! bravo Jordan
Oh my god. One of the reasons recently put forward for blocking VOIP in the UAE was ‘national security’, which I translate as meaning ‘we cannot tap VOIP calls’.
What a sad state of affairs. Old-fashioned telco’s throughout the world are going to suffer financially, but the smart ones learn how to deal with it. Blocking it is the worst possible reaction.
I had ADSL issues recently with Batelco, It seemed like a firewall and blocked ports matter.
During troubleshooting, their tech support told me that “the only ports we block are VoIP ports… ”
isn’t it easy to proxy skype packets through some other port? and then proxy them back again to skype?
this may affect the quality some, but for voice it shouldn’t be bad.
Censoring the internet is next to impossible.
OK, after googling for 10 minutes I found this. Using special software to encrypt & tunnel messages, residents in UAE were able to get around the Skype block and place Skype calls.
Instructions on how to do it:
http://torandskype.blogspot.com/
the forum where people confirmed that it works in UAE:
http://forum.skype.com/index.php?showtopic=54627&st=40&p=289855&#entry289855
now we need somebody in Jordan to verify if it works.
it’s worthy to say also that my previous hypothesis on the “port used by skype” is not correct. Skype uses multiple ports to connect to the internet, but it doesn’t use http protocol. The ISPs must have blocked that protocol. Computer users in UAE think that the Etisilat over there used this company’s product to block Skype:
http://www.bitek.com/
good luck ya Skype users
a news bit on how Etisilat of UAE uses Bitek’s product to block skype (high level)
the link:
http://archive.gulfnews.com/articles/05/12/01/10001807.html
I’ve mentioned about blockin Skype in comment some time ago.
What about other voip services, paid SIP services?
u suck!!
hi roba.. i already spoke to some people at newspapers about it, not sure they’ll write tho..
Ahmad can’t you write about it at JT, I really think someone has to do something about it!
testing to leave a comment, – haven’t been able too for the passed 5 days! What gives – what’s changed!
Humeid
This is just the tip of the iceberg, operators –especially wireless ones- are investing heavily in data packet “policing” and monitoring in order to stop internet usage that will otherwise compromise other services revenue once they start offering wireless broadband to their punters. What? You’ll be getting a clean IP pipe through, say Fas*tlink and start calling overseas for pennies while leaving its international-calling subsidy (which is almost-bankrupt) Bella out in the dry!
It’s the pragmatic technology-agnostic advancement that renders legacy technologies useless and unfeasible over night, whether corporate spent few hundred millions in deploying hardware or few thous on VoIP-optimised routers… legislative and regulatory bodies are finding it hard to keep up with the challenges.
Technically, it’ll be almost impossible to block something out, you’ll always have anonymisers & HTTP-tunnel software among other innovative freeware solutions to such problems, to the point that you don’t even have to be an advanced user any longer, haven’t you already been offered an ad-hoc pirated sat receiver that requires an ADSL connection for instantaneous deciphering of pay-tv scrambling!
According to the Skype forum about this issue, complaints should be addressed to:
any one who needs a voip account you can contact me at my email or call me at my mobi.: +962 777 233 580
it is a registered jordanian company which can provide u with low cost international call
The a really bad step towards development, the telecommunication sector is already advancing very slowly and with such decision it will even slow more and more. VOIP is one of the most used services in jordan, We should all call to reopen VOIP protocol.
Hello,
Many countries are blocking VoIP softwares such as Skype.
The only solution that works to unlock Skype in these countries is the “personalVPN” from Witopia. It costs 39,99$ per year and is really simple to use.
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The personalVPN encrypte your connection to a US IP address, with this method your ISP can’t detect that you’re using Skype or another VoIP software!
In addition, it protects your computer against hackers!
It works on Windows 2000, Windows XP, Windows Vista, Macintosh OS X, and Linux.
I hope we’ll see you back soon on Skype…
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