Free Skype!
It has been confirmed that Telecommunication Regularity Commission has recently banned VoIP Skype in Jordan. This absurd blockage is probably just a way to make the state communications companies happy after years of losing long-distance customers to Skype.
Restricting access to Skype is a major setback to Jordan’s IT and telecom industries as it is a direct case of fighting technological advancement. Furthermore, blocking sites to protect the commercial interests of a few companies is one of the worst things that could happen to such technological industries. It is very unfortunate to see such a decision taking as Jordan was one of the countries with the highest level of freedom of access in the Internet.
Ironically, the vision of the TRC as stated on their website is A telecommunications environment that is competitive, advanced, regulated and available to all.
The blocking of Skype is a direct contradiction to the statement above! Funny folks.
It seems like Batelco Jordan were they first to block Skype.com website and Skype login server and that might be because they have their own International calls solution so it’s very healthy to act quick.
TRC claim that they had ordered it banned because of Security reasons
and this makes me wonder if about the differences between Skype and JTC blackbox or Batelco’s Prepaid cards or even maktoob’s skype.
We, as Jordanian bloggers, should step up to such a horrendous decision that might as well be the first step in standardizing internet censorship, so please take a second to spread to blog your discontent or to send an email to the people behind the blockage.
October 12th, 2006 at 9:51 AM
TRC stopping something in the name of security is so ridiculous especially in lite of record breaking number of security patches applied to IE a few days ago. Stop IE why don’t you?!!
I have no evidence of this, but the only reason I can see is that Telecoms have more money and power than TRC can resist.
Please anyone, if you have any information on why this really happened, please send it in, and lets get to the bottom of this.
We can change it. We need to change it regardless of whether its Skype or any other program. We should not let this incident pass and set precedence for all upcoming work of TRC.
TRC is there to help us get better service, and if the Parliament is not going to do something about it, then the people should.
Lets all gather as much information as we can to expose the wrong doers and make sure things like these never happen again.
October 12th, 2006 at 10:28 AM
jad
i tried to log on to skype now and it worked..so is it that i cannot use it for voice chat? or what?
October 13th, 2006 at 1:21 AM
HOT FROM JORDAN’S REGULATORY OVEN:
TRC considering banning email and fax to save the Jordan Postal Service.
Seriously
October 14th, 2006 at 9:14 PM
[...] After a month of blockage, voip provider Skype is unblocked in Jordan once again, as apparently, the security issues cited as the reason for the block have been resolved. Not sure I buy that, but whatever, I’m glad to see it up and running again. [...]
October 28th, 2006 at 1:01 PM
Skype movement ends…
A couple of weeks ago, Isam noted that Skype’s website has been blocked across the Jordanian ISP’s by…