I heard that NTC recently raid at the place in Kathmandu where they were operating VOIP service in Nepal. According to NTC, VOIP is illegal in Nepal. But all the calling cards that people leaving outside Nepal are using, in some way use VOIP else calling from USA to Nepal should be way more than 10-20cents per minute. If NTC started raiding these VOIP services in Nepal then it will be harder for people living outside Nepal to make calls to Nepal. The reason I heard so far for not legalizing VOIP is, it will effect NTC business. So, my question is, is it fare? This is age of technology, NTC or government should not restrict any technological improvement. If its hacking someone else's credit card over internet or identity thief then I would consider it as illegal but using internet to make cheap phone calls should not be illegal. And if NTC think it will impact their business then NTC should provide better reliable cheap service and COMPETE. I think there should be open market and competition and should not be restriction over technology.

Since I am in tech field, I feel bad when I hear these news ....

Any thoughts? Do you really think VOIP is any kind of thieft or any illegal activity? I think its good cheap way to communicate.

If you guys are interested and don't already know, use gizmo5.com. You can call many USA numbers for free using VOIP. We shouldn't be against technology.

Thanks,

BK.

VOIP should be legalized in Nepal too. If it is really that bad then US and other developed countries would not have implemented it. NTC is just trying to cheat us. But the thing is that why should we pay more if we can enjoy the same service for less price.......

it's legal bro... go ahead n use it, none gonna harm u..
i've been using since... 2006..

As far as I know, and I am working in a very related field, Nepal's constitution and law does not say VOIP is illegal. Using long range cordless phones and transmitting your own radio signals is illegal because you affect the channel that the government allocates to different groups. But once Internet is legalized in a country (!), all its services are legalized too unless it does not conflict national interests (exceptions: some countries in middle-east and China).

NTC, in my opinion, is making use of the silence of people. They made billions by imposing such rules and guess what, they are all set to divide the profit among the employees.

Rangeen Chara

Dude.. As Rangeen Chara said VOIP is already legalized in NEPAL, the budget call service 1425/1445 provided by NTC and 1212 call service provided by UTL falls under the category of VOIP service.

The raid on NETLINK is because of VOIP but not related with NTC/UTL only. The main reason for that is to start so called personal VOIP service is they dont have to register any where. that means that they dont have to pay any kind of tax on their income.

But for all call through these national level operator(UTL/NTC) they have to pay same amount of tax on their money. As because of these private business VOIP, these national level operator were loosing their income but on the same time NEPAL government was also loosing a big chunk of money.. As Baburam is trying to collect the as much of tax he can....  they raided on NETLINK. So that NTC and UTL will can have more revenue and at the same time NEPAL government can also have some chunk from that revenue


my 2 cent

Get your facts straight!

In brief, you can use PC or devices that carry your SIP/SDP/RTP messages to Nepal and abroad. But you cant create a SIP-PSTN gateway within Nepal - which obviously would hamper NTC and similar POTS provider. Not that it hasnt been used, e.g. Govt. allows Nangi village (Nepal Wireless networks) to be connected through such a SIP-PSTN gateway in Pokhara, which im not sure if is a special provision made.


(CONDITIONS TO BE ABIDE BY THE LICENSEE TO OPERATE INTERNET TELEPHONY SERVICES)

Ref: http://nta.gov.np/miscellaneous.html
(Note to NTA if you ever listen, please go through the documents at least once when you put it public)


The Nepal Telecommunications Authority has decided to permit the Internet Service Providers (ISPs) to process and carry voice signals through IP network subject to the following broad guidelines: -


1. Only ISP licensees are permitted to offer such service.


2. Scope and Definition of Internet Telephony Services:

 
2.1 Internet Telephony means an Application Service, which the customers of ISPs can avail from their Personal Computers (PC) capable of processing voice signals or other IP based Customer Premises Equipment (CPE) as mentioned below:-
     a) PC to PC (Both within as well as outside Nepal).
    
b) PC in Nepal to Telephone outside Nepal
    
c) IP based H.323/SIP Terminals in Nepal to similar Terminals both in Nepal and abroad, employing IP addressing scheme of ‘Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA)’

  2.2 The addressing scheme for such a communication involving transmission of voice in packetized data format through the public Internet will conform to IP addressing scheme of Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA) alone and not the E.164 numbering scheme/plan applicable to subscribers of Basic/Cellular Telephone Service.

 
2.3 Internet Telephony Service offered by ISPs is different in nature, scope and kind from the real time voice, offered as telecommunication service by operators such as Basic Service Operators, Cellular Mobile Service Operators etc, under their existing license.


3. The following are outside and do not fall under Internet Telephony service: -


 (i) Voice communication from anywhere to anywhere by means of dialing a telephone number (PSTN/ISDN/PLMN) using National Numbering Plan or E.164 Numbering Scheme;
 (ii) Originating the voice communication service from a Telephone/Mobile set (that uses E.164 Numbering Scheme) in Nepal;
 (iii) Terminating the voice communication to Telephone/Mobile (that uses E.164 Numbering Scheme) within Nepal;
 (iv) Establishing an interconnection to any Public Switched Network in Nepal;
 (v) Dial up lines with outward dialing facility from ISP nodes.

4. Quality of Service

Quality of Service (QoS) shall be as prescribed from time to time by Nepal Telecommunications Authority.

5. Security Monitoring

 5.1 Privacy of the consumers should be ensured by the ISPs.
 5.2 Suitable additional monitoring system (calling and called party identification, provision of lawful interception of calls, details of calls etc.) is to be set up by the ISPs carrying Internet telephony traffic through their Internet gateways, at their own cost and the cost of maintenance of the monitoring equipment shall be borne by the
ISPs.

6. Tariff
NTA has not levied tariff for Internet telephony offered by ISPs over public Internet; however, NTA may review and fix a tariff at any time during the validity of ISP license, which shall be binding on the licensee. ISPs are not allowed to impose any tariff to consumers for Internet telephony without approval from NTA.

Thats my point too..

There is no restriction on VOIP, but the restriction is only on gateway service by the private user.. for natioal level POTS... they are operating VOIP as they paying TAX for that.. but not the private owned cyber cafe and calling card provider...


As far as I know, previously may be 6-7 years ago WLNIK used to block the SIP message. So we were not able to had the voice chat through MSN or yahoo.

But now these days. we are able to use MSN yahoo and skype easily.. that means that there is no problem with VOIP.

But Stil NTC is trying its best to reduce the use the VOIP usage. What I heard that... they did not bought free private IP address. As they doesnot want their ADSL to support the VPN and other remote log on facilities..

So, does this mean, VOIP is legal for anyone in Nepal for personal use OR, its legal for those who have license to use?

I didn't quite get this point - "Only ISP licensees are permitted to offer such service". What does this mean?

So, is it legal for public to use VOIP in Nepal or not?

What do you mean - "What I heard that... they did not bought free private IP address."

bkshres,

As far as my understanding goes, an ISP licensee can set up a sip server , replication server that can route the messages coming in from their clients and route to a gateway or a Sip relay  to carry on voip traffic within their network, making sure that the gateway doesnot terminate within the nation.

So, ME (as a consumer) can use VOIP using the IP service from my service provider with their SIP ADDRESS, if they provide at all.

But , I CAN'T create my own SIP SERVER at my home lab, and provide service to people around, unless i am an ISP or unless i am specially provisioned, which seems to be the case for Mahabir dai's project.

NEPAL IS MOVING BACK TO 18 CENTURY, OIL LAMP ERA, SO WHY SHOULD MOAIST CARES ABOUT VOIP, THEY  HAD NEVER USE VOIP SYSTEM IN JUNGLE,  SOONER OR LATER NEPAL IS GOING ANOTHER NORTH KOREA, HOPELESS COUNTRY LAL SALAM COUNTRY, , DONT EXPECT FROM THE COUNTRY THAT HAS A FULL OF STUPID PEOPLE NEPAL,

In Nepal, VOIP is legalized upto national level only. But you are not allowed to use it internationally. only Spice Nepal and UTL have license to do voip internationally. I am not sure, but i heard that poeple doing voip illegally in nepal are earning lakhs in a week, and I guess the government is loosing lots of revenue from it.

What I mean to say that I tried to use the VPN  as well as Remote Desktop through ADSL and it didnot support it. I inquired about it  and found that the current vendor (huwaie or zte) equipment of ADSL can support these application but to use in given configuration, NTC has to registered some where ( i don't know exaclty where) for those range of public IP address. but ntc did not agreed to that so the current vendor has to installed in such a way that it could not  support above mentioned application


Quicsilker, what you heard is exaclty true.
here is the simple example,

any $ 5 dollor card in for example in  tomatotel cost you $5.39 ($0.39 is some kind of surcharge fee)

suppose that they are routing around 400  calls in weekdays and 700 calls per weekend (I think 400 and 700 are quite low number for these well know VOIP call generator sites)
 that means they are routing 400*5+2*700  = 3400 calls

For those 3400 calls they will get 3400 *5.39 = $ 18326
If that  private cyber cafe  of Nepal who will generate our call from internet got 30% of that money it will be  $5497.8 i.e NRS 4,12,335 ( so if they have to pay for 1,00,000 for local call usage) they will get around 3,00,000 money per week (Oh man that really too much)

Okay here is the news from dainikee, you can figure out how much Nepal government was losing because of private VOIP

- 2009-02-12 22:56:26
	अन्तर्राष्ट्रिय कल बाइपासको आरोपमा नेटलिङ्कमा छापा
काठमाडौं, फागुन १ (दैनिकी)- बिदेशबाट आउने टेलिफोन कललाई अवैध माध्यमबाट भित्राएर राजश्व छल्ने  गरेको आरोपमा महाराजगन्जको एक कार्यालयमा नेपाल टेलिकमले छापा मारेको छ। टेलिकमको राजश्व निगरानी समितिले शिक्षण अस्पताल नजिक रहेको एलाइट नेटलिङ्क टेक्नोलोजी नामक उक्त कार्यालयमा बिहीबार राति छापा मारेको थियो। त्यस क्रममा नेपाल टेलिकम, युटिएलका दुई दर्जन टेलिफोन प्रयोग गरी कल वाइपास गरेको पाइएको टेलिकमका एक अधिकारीले जानकारी दिए। प्रहरीको समेत सहयोगमा त्यहाँ छापा मारिएको थियो। बिदेशबाट आउने कललाई बिभिन्न उपकरण जडान गरेर नेपालमा भित्र्याउने र यहाँबाट स्थानीय नम्बर मार्फत् ग्राहकको टेलिफोनमा पुर्‍याउने काम केही व्यक्ति तथा समूहले गर्दै आएका छन् । त्यस्तो कार्यबाट सरकारको राजश्वमा झण्डै २५ प्रतिशत नोक्सानी हुँदै आएको छ ।