[governance] Ethiopia criminalises the use of VOIP

[Daniel Kalchev]

On 18.06.12 12:44, Avri Doria wrote:
> Yes, for as long as people are the nasty creatures we are, states remain an necessarry evil, but there is no reason to entrust them with the tools of freedom and progress.

Very good Avri! Certainly the essence of my opinion. Wish people were 
different, but one has to acknowledge reality.

> I am assuming tha what Ethiopian and FT have done to consipre with each other to deprive the Ethiopian people with a goood communications tool was perfectly ok with the ITU. Am I wrong about that?

What is even more weird about this situation is that (judging by my own 
observations over the years -  which I believe are even more extreme in 
Ethiopia), the monopoly Telco is likely able to offer "telephony only" 
is most places and "telephony and Internet" is very limited other 
places. So, they are afraid of losing monopoly telephony revenue in the 
places where they offer Internet as well. Truth is, they have already 
let the Genie out of the bottle. If they didn't want people to use 
Internet in Ethiopia, then the local monopoly Telco should not have 
offered Internet services at all.

For the other people, who would use Internet over the telephony network 
(via modem), it is painful enough to use (today's) Internet over modem, 
let alone voice via skype.

As for.. "policies which could aim to common, public interest". No, I 
reduce my trust to anyone who claims such are their only motivation. For 
as the old saying goes: The road to hell is paved with good intentions.

Daniel

PS: I have no proof from where I came, actually.

-------------- next part --------------
____________________________________________________________
You received this message as a subscriber on the list:
     governance at lists.igcaucus.org
To be removed from the list, visit:
     http://www.igcaucus.org/unsubscribing

For all other list information and functions, see:
     http://lists.igcaucus.org/info/governance
To edit your profile and to find the IGC's charter, see:
     http://www.igcaucus.org/

Translate this email: http://translate.google.com/translate_t