Belarusians to pay for Skype and Viber calls?

The intention to monetize Skype and Viber the Communications Ministry announced early in the year. The Minister Syarhei Papkou said at the time that a working group had been formed, which was looking into options.

"There are about 11 such services in the world - they do not invest a penny in technology development. The natural loss of income due to growth in services of such technology is about 10-15%, according to Russian and European experts. In different countries this issue is solved in different ways. For example, the superfluous traffic is monetized."

The Ministry officials told Euroradio that the working group is studying international experience, but with no concrete solutions yet. What experience can be studied in this area is unclear, as no country in the world has it. But there have been attempts: in Russia, for example, there were sugestions to charge subscribers extra money for the traffic generated by Skype and Viber.

Then Beltelekam announced a tender for the purchase of hardware and software that blocks websites, as well as for those collecting and storing information about users visiting websites.

Later it was reported that one of the components of this equipment can identify voice traffic (IP-telephony) with reference to a specific subscriber. In other words, the equipment will analyze traffic, calculate, with whom, and how long a particular user talked on Skype or Viber, and charge for it using certain tariffs.

Is it even possible to charge for a conversation on Skype or Viber?

There may be several options. Some of them are technically difficult but possible in theory.

The first option: Skype or Viber will share profits with the state. But then it will be necessary to introduce a fee for calls between subscribers, which is almost impossible. Therefore, it is not an option. The more so because the companies themselves are unlikely to want to share.

The second option is Russian in origin: charge subscribers for traffic generated by Skype or Viber. Technically, it is possible. For example, one of the operators had a separate tariff for traffic going through the mobile browser. Likewise, you can set a separate rate for traffic from Skype or Viber.

The third option is the most technically complex one, but, as it turned out, also real. You can charge clients for each specific conversation using different rates, depending on the destination country: calls to Skype or Viber in Belarus or the United States may be charged differently. We made several calls to different countries - three out of the four times Viber did it directly to subscriber and you could see the IP-address of our source and know his country of origin. Only in one case the connection was done through the Viber server, and only the company itself and the user could know where the call was directed.

All Skype calls happen between subscribers, and analysing the traffic in this case it is possible to understand that the user has started a conversation on Skype and to see the country of his connection.

There have been similar attempts made in Russia, too, but they were cut short at the talks with the Russian mobile operators - the big three. It is hoped that the Belarusian initiative will not find technical options for it.

The working group includes representatives of the Association "Belinfakom." But so far they have not taken part in the meetings.

There are a lot of discussions around the world now about the rules of network neutrality. For example, in the US, providers are forbidden to charge extra money for faster access to some sites, or, on the contrary, slow the speed of access at no extra charge. If you purchased traffic from the provider, then you decide how to spend it.

Incidentally, avoiding such plans to monetize traffic to Skype and Viber can be very simple. It is enough to run a VPN on your phone or computer, and the provider will not be able to see that you are calling someone via Skype or Viber.

Photo: globaljournalist.org