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Is there a VoIP Ban in South Africa?

Doing a quick Google search revealed the following:

“According to IT Web and other news sources, communications
minister Ivy Matsepe-Casaburri announced in Parliament” (in 2005
already) “that voice communication can be legally carried by
value added network operators using any protocol.”

However doing a quick mobile provider search revealed something different.

Quote:
“In terms of the current regulatory regime in South Africa,
please note that these tariffs and the MTN GPRS, GPRS+, EDGE or
3G technologies may not be used to transfer or generate Voice
over Internet Protocol (VoIP) traffic. Should it be found that
VoIP traffic was carried over the MTN network using these
tariffs or technologies, MTN reserves the right to cancel the
agreement that you have with MTN, with immediate effect. You
will also be charged retrospectively at R21.93 per Megabyte (VAT
excluded) for any VoIP traffic transferred by such means.”
http://www.mtn.co.za/?pid=232081&mid=232093

so in a quest to investigate this “regulatory regime” further, I
popped over to other local mobile operators websites and to my
surprise i found the following. Quote: “Unrestricted VoIP”

What does this mean to fringsters? Just make sure that you are not caught unawares by your mobile operator. Double check your contracts and fring aling along to an operator that supports VoIP.

Some questions now remain. Are only some mobile networks regulated by this “regulatory regime”? Who is the “regulatory regime”? Why does it only seem to affect some?

It’s going to be interesting following future developments?

10 Comments »

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1. I signed a two year deal, not knowing about this blatant revenue protection, but was alerted by the unhelpful helpline, hope consumer sentiment forces a re-think…

   Comment by charl leslie — July 23, 2007 #

2. Wasn’t VOIP legalized with new legislation?

   Comment by Willie — July 24, 2007 #

3. VoIP is legal in South Africa! Some networks though seem to have a penalty for VoIP usage, Others do not, so its up to each user to see which network is best for him or her.

   Comment by simon — July 24, 2007 #

4. Some choose to charge a higher fee for VOIP data. Thats is their right to do so, I guess. But I bet we the only country in the world (again) to suffer under that limitation. The time is here, VOIP will rule… MXit users will all move over to Fring. And MTN will loose all their customers if they choose to penalize customers. So… Vodacom… Virgin… CellC… if you want to a get huge influx of new customers, simply don’t do what MTN is doing.

   Comment by JohnGore — July 24, 2007 #

5. Lucky me im on MTN

   Comment by Willie — July 25, 2007 #

6. [...] MTN technically forbids the use of VoIP over their network, and they reserve the right to charge you R25 per megabyte if they catch you. (I estimate that to be close to standard cellphone rates, except, they might charge both parties in the conversation, if both are MTN customers.) They also reserve the right to terminate their agreement with you with immediate effect. It all sounds very scary, but they have not actually done so, yet. They simply reserve the right to… For now? I will limit my use, so that if they hit me with R25 per meg, it won’t be the end of the world. I hope if they cancel my contract, I can still take my number with me. [...]

   Pingback by thinktoomuch.net » Blog Archive » fring fring! — July 30, 2007 #

7. I notice your link to vodac0m has gone down. Google cash link: original vodac0m iBur$t rates…

   Comment by andrew — July 31, 2007 #

8. If a network terminates your agreement, then unfortunately you cannot take your number with you, you will have to get a new contract with a new number, and a different network… MTN will have to get used to VOIP because South Africa is moving along, and so should they… Thats my opinion,

   Comment by VodaUser — August 26, 2007 #

9. I would also just like to congratulate the users of fring, and not to be forgotten, the developers and publishers of FRING. You guys did great service for SA, now we should just find a way to advertise this program so that everyone could go onto it, and also, we urgently need FRING for JAVA enabled phones, because not all the phones run Symbian or Windows Mobile software… I hope that someone would be able to get this for us on the JAVA phones, like the new Samsung U700

   Comment by VodaUser — August 26, 2007 #

10. I use the iCTel software (which is a partner of Fring which is just pre-configured to allow the SIP calls to normal landlines and cellphones) and have found that the Cellphone networks in South Africa frown upon VOIP usage but legally they can’t do anything. Whohoo

    Hopefully there will be positive shaping of VOIP in the near future (meaning that VOIP will take more precedence on the network)

    If you have had some issues with VOIP and your mobile/cellphone network please let me know.

    Comment by Lui007 — August 3, 2008 #

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