The Chinese government plans to ban Skype in the nation, adding to the list of restricted internet services such as Facebook, YouTube and Twitter.
People’s Daily, the government’s official mouthpiece, stated that the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) will only enable state-owned China Telecom and China Unicom – two of the largest phone service providers – to provide customers with their own Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP), making other services providing VoIP illegal.
The ministry has not determined a timetable of when the policies will be implemented, according to the report published on the People’s Daily website.
A Skype spokesperson claims that Skype is still functioning amidst the uncertainty and that users can access Skype through the company’s joint venture with Chinese mobile internet provider TOM Online.
Alisha Haridasani
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