CAIRO: Salma Abdallah sits at a local cafe checking her email on her brand new iPhone. She is frustrated this morning, as she had a planned Skype call with her family in Northern Virginia, just south of Washington, DC, but the application won't load on the phone. There will be no talking to family members this day. “It is disappointing,” the 24-year-old waitress began. “I spoke to them last week without any problems, then we started hearing rumors that Skype on phones was going to be banned. Now it looks like it has been,” she adds, dropping her eyes, the anger obviously boiling. “This is my right, is it not? Maybe they should lower prices of international calls and then we wouldn't need Skype.” That is not going to happen, however, as the lobbying of the three Egyptian mobile operators, Vodafone, Mobinil and Etisalat have won the most recent battle with regulators to ban the Internet phone service from 3G users and those using the mobile company's USB Internet stick. “The ban is on Skype on mobile internet, not on fixed, and this is due to the fact it is against the law since it bypasses the legal gateway,” said Amr Badawy, the executive president of the National Telecommunication Regulatory Authority (NTRA). Telecom Egypt, which holds a monopoly on all international calls coming from Egypt, reported poor earnings in their most recent report this week and had pressured, in consortium with the mobile operators, to ban Skype, which they argued was being used to place calls to friends and family abroad. They were right and the government reacted. Badawy, however, did not rule out the possibility of extending the ban to other services in the future, including fixed Internet connections in people's homes. “We are targeting any illegal voice traffic on the mobile (Internet),” Badawy said, adding that the ban was communicated to the three mobile operators earlier this week. “Any traffic outside the international gateway is against the law.” The comments have left Egyptians like Abdallah worried that they will be forced to spend exorbitant amounts of money in order to speak to family members and friends living abroad. “We've been informed of the decision and we are already abiding by it,” Vodafone Egypt spokesman Khaled Hegazy said in a statement carried by Reuters. Skype has become the easiest way to connect to friends and family in distant locations as it offers cheap rates when calling direct lines and is a free service if both users have Skype accounts. In Egypt, with international calling rates at nearly $0.50 per minute, Skype offered a link to the outside world. “Now, I don't think I will be able to talk to my brother in Virginia because it is too expensive. I don't make enough money to buy a computer and get the Internet at home,” Abdallah continued. She makes around 600 Egyptian pounds ($110) per month at her job in the upscale Zamalek neighborhood. “He had bought me this phone so I could get online and call him. What is my mother going to do?” Egypt's move to ban Skype on mobile phones comes only days after the United Arab Emirates announced it would not give licenses to companies like Skype to operate in the country. In September, Indian agencies recommended a ban on international internet telephony until a system to trace the calls was put in place. Badawy could not say whether Egypt's ban would be extended to all international voice calls made over fixed-line internet. For now, those living in Egypt will be able to access Skype from their computers at home, but it may not last. BM
