It’s been couple of days & I have been hearing and experiencing the rumors of Skype is not allowed on Egyptians mobile phones anymore!
I have read this article on The Daily News Egypt today & it is confirming that National Telecommunication Regulatory Authority (AKA NTRA) will shutdown Skype on Mobile Phones & Portable mobile internet as well.
That sucks! Why would they do that ?
Simple! Telecom Egypt cannot handle the beating it’s taking from Skype. Skype is a young vibrant business that has people working very hard to invent a solution for expensive international phone calls & they succeeded! Now since old heaving slow Telecom Egypt cannot compete with Skype they are forcing the government to ban Skype for their sole benefit!
Is this Ethical ?
NO! It is not Ethical to call your big daddy & ask him to help you when you are in a fight. You go in & fight your fight, win or lose with honor.
Is this a conflict of interest ?
YES YES YES! NTRA is responsible for supervising, organizing & monitoring the telecommunication in general to ensure smooth operations. It’s not their job to step in, force a decision to save a particular company from being doomed due to its incompetency!
“This is not something new, but [mobile providers] weren’t required to enforce it until recently.”
Quoted Khaled Hegazy, external affairs director for Vodafone Egypt. That is correct it is not something new, however, that doesn’t mean it is correct back then! We are trying very hard to get foreign investments into Egypt, that requires very reliable infrastructure to protect your investments. And since Cairo is the most crowded cities in the world, foreigners afraid to drink our tap water and we have a very hot weather, telecommunication is currently the most reliable infrastructure aspect we depend on to bring investments into Egypt.
By banning Skype, NTRA cuts the small & individuals business relations to the outside world. They lose MILLIONS of investment opportunities by banning such technology.
Is this good for anyone?!
Besides Phone companies? NO! Most individuals who cannot get around that decision (using proxies & such) to bypass that restriction, will just give up. All young minds full of power will be pushed back with frustration to find something “else” to do.
Companies who won’t go around for that, they will use the Telecom Egypt phone lines & start charging that to their customers making them lose one of their most competitive edges, Price! leading them to an unfair comparison with India & China which is not going to end in their favor!
This is not the end of it!
They have also said that other voice over IP technology vendors such as Yahoo & MSN will be banned as well. I guarantee you, this is only a first step to ban Skype on all connections whether it’s a portable, mobile or fixed internet connection you have.
Conclusion
NTRA has misused their authorities taking such a “short-sighted” decision protecting an old company & telecommunication giants (who could’ve taken of themselves but they took the easy governmental path) from such a young competitor like Skype.
People will learn to go around that banning, no real value will come to anyone. Probably Telecom companies will fall again with battle with another technology instead of doing some heave R&D to save themselves for all the future promising open technologies.
Let’s hope such a decision does not stay for long to protect what we’ve been working hard for so long!