Big business lobbyists made up their minds to limit Skype in Russia

The growth of Skype’s population which is a well-known IP telephony service, in Russian can be reduced. The Russian Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs (RUIE) is going to prepare amendments administering this market section’s functioning. In addition, it is said that the limitations are aimed for protecting Russian mobile network operators’ business.

On the 21st of July, the RUIE commission dealing with informational technologies and telecommunication talked over IP telephony business. The representatives of IT companies suppose that, for example,, that voice calls via Skype can’t be tapped by the secret services.

The RUIE announcement based on the conclusions of the commission meeting supposes that by 2012 IP telephony which can’t be controlled by the government will occupy 40% of the traffic. This will inevitably lead to anxiety over safety”. The bulletin also claims that “most of Russian telecommunication market is occupied by foreign-based companies such as ICQ and Skype. That’s why Russian IT brands’ interests should be protected”.

The RUIE release also marks that today none of the 182 countries controls the IP telephony business this way. Still, in the end the participants of the meeting stated that, at any rate, the Russian business and, moreover, the state itself have to “come to terms” with this service.

As a rule, mobile network operators are set against the IP telephony because this software allows people to pay much less than while using usual mobile services. Vitaliy Kotov, the chief vice-president of the company “TransTeleCom”, claims that the IP telephony prices are 1,5-2 times lower than those of the standard mobile operators while part of the services are absolutely free.

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