|  Voice
over the Internet and connecting wirelessly to your neighbour's
house may be illegal, but a raft of new technologies break
legislative and regulatory barriers anyway
New
wireless networking and Voice over IP (VoIP) technologies
are seriously challenging restrictive South African communications
legislation, possibly calling whole sections of the Telecommunications
Act and associated regulations into question, says spokesman
for the Communications Users Association of South Africa,
Ray Webber.
"According
to South African telecommunications legislation and regulation,
only a few licensed providers such as Telkom are permitted
to run VoIP over public networks. But that hasn't stopped
thousands of South Africans from using instant messaging applications
like MSN Messenger, InternetPhone (as far back as 1996), and
more recently, VoIP application Skype," says Webber.
The
MSN Messenger application is more commonly used in its primary
role as an instant messaging utility to communicate via text
to anyone, anywhere in the world. However, MSN Messenger includes
the ability to communicate via microphone, speakers and even
a webcam. Those who have tested the service often find that
while MSN may work well as an instant text messenger, having
a conversation with a friend in their London office over the
internet could often be described as "shaky". This
could largely be due to continuously increasing internet usage
and South Africa's questionable international bandwidth.
With
well over three million downloads world-wide, peer to peer
phone service Skype may well represent a serious threat to
conventional telcos. The service is offered by the same developers
who brought instant headaches to software and music publishers
with the KazaA peer to peer application.
According
to the site www.skype.com, the technology directly connects
users - not to share files this time - but to talk and chat
with friends. The developers claim that their free download
is extremely advanced, but super simple to use and that users
will be "making free phone calls to . . . friends in
no time".
The developers further claim that they offer unlimited worldwide
phone calls to other Skype users and that the service offers
"superior sound quality - better than your regular phone".
Testing such claims would involve downloading the application
and inviting another user to do the same - communicating directly
over IP (more or less for free). Such an action would, of
course, be illegal in South Africa.
"Regardless, one can statistically assume that thousands
of South Africans are using such services anyway, even though
there appear to be various data security and privacy risks
associated with such services. The download is freely available
online and we would all be naïve to believe that South
Africans are not utilising such services," says Webber.
In an article published in AustralianIT, Skype's founders,
Niklas Zennstrom and Janus Friis are reported as saying that
their service will "challenge the outdated business models
and rip-off tactics of legacy telcos". The article further
quotes a future technologies expert, Bill Koff, as saying
that Skype may "completely disrupt" the traditional
telephony market and that such "disruptive technologies
. . . pose an enormous threat to telcos".
Peer to peer technologies such as KaZaA and Napster ran into
legal problems because users were exchanging material which
is copyright protected. The same cannot be said for two people
having a telephone conversation using IP over the Internet.
"With such rapid growth in the development and use of
VoIP technologies, we question the relevance of restrictive
South African legislation," says Webber. "The use
of applications such as Skype are almost impossible to police.
We even suspect that Telkom's own internet service (Telkom
Internet) is being used to carry such services. Does this
render our legislation defunct?" he questions.
Another technology which could be graying the hairs of both
legislators and Telkom executives is the proliferation of
wireless networking solutions. In terms of the Telecommunications
Act, only specified providers are legally entitled to run
connectivity solutions over public roads or between buildings
which are owned by two separate parties. So installing a wireless
network and inviting your neighbour to a networked bout of
Warcraft III is deemed illegal. Or worse - utilising the same
network with VoiP to invite him for a spot of tea and koeksusters.
Of course, the ultimate crime would be to install an ADSL
solution provided by Telkom and wirelessly network your entire
street to the net.
"On one hand, some South African legislation and regulation
is unequivocal with regard to these matters," says Webber.
"On the other, this kind of legislation is surely past
its sell-by date," he says.
"The real difficulty is in identifying just how far such
legislation should be relaxed. At what point does a wireless
network become a widespread broadcasting solution akin to
an ISP, radio or television station? Regardless, we expect
to see serious legislative challenges on the horizon. In the
meantime, many South Africans are likely to ignore this kind
of legislation anyway - taking the risks as they see fit,"
he says.
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