This morning, a call placed to Vodafone’s customer service indicated that Telecom Egypt is going to block Skype in Egypt, and that it’s out of their hands. After repeated calls from various people to Vodafone’s customer service, they were told “Skype is being blocked since 13th March based on an order from Telecom Egypt.”, The Next Web.As you can see, the source of the news are Vodafone users who are not able to use Skype when they are connected to the internet via their 3G USB Modems. And since many of the ADSL home users are reporting that Skype is working fine at their places. Then I have strong feeling that the Egyptian government has nothing to do with this. I believe it is just Vodafone's DPI that is blocking Skype in order not to harm their revenues.
Update [16 March 2010]: It's official now, the NTRA - the government - is the one responsible for this and not the mobile operators. However I have strong feelings that the operators are the one who pushed the NTRA to take such decision in the first place as Skype harms their - as well as Telecom Egypt's - revenues.
Tags: Skype, Vodafone, Gr33n Data
Yes, I can confirm Skype is blocked from Vodafone 3G USB modems. 24/3/10
ReplyDeleteI used this service extensively to call my elderly Mother regularly in the UK, I'm therefore bitterly disappointed with this development as the cost of using a GSM is exhorbitant
Anon,
ReplyDeleteSorry for you, the government and Mobile Operators are a bunch of thieves and bastards!
Testing my open id
ReplyDeleteSkype is still working fine on Etisalat 3G (28/3/2010).
ReplyDeleteEtisalat have problems blocking it, but they are going to block it sooner or later.
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ReplyDeleteTarek, I second you on your reply to Anon. It just sucks.
ReplyDeleteIf it gets blocked on regular internet and you cant use it from your computer, visit http://www.vpnaccounts.com
ReplyDeleteCrazy, but at least anecdotal evidence that Skype's encryption is quite strong!
ReplyDeleteI really have huge problems with those ISP. They think that they can get benefits of those kind policies to improve their network usage but it isn't that way because competition can the other way around and they can loose costumers.
ReplyDelete2 bad for them, but at least they have the pyramids in compensation.
ReplyDeleteI want t know why Egyptian government is blocking Skype.???? it is one of the most important tools in the new world, come on !!
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