“I could leak you legal correspondence showing what threats were made after Netspeak was launched… But I would lose my job.”
I won’t say how I am familiar with the VoIP policy as I am under contract not to.
Just call me a consultant, and no, I do not consult for the Government C&W or any other existing Service provider in Barbados. But nonetheless, I am intimately aware of all the developments.
If You Want The Truth About VoIP, Read On
VoIP is a service that needs proper legislation, it is legislated in the US and most parts of the world (even those who began without legislation are now implementing). For instance, the US VoIP providers must now contribute to the Universal Service Fund like all other international carriers and this is just one example.
And yes, according to the old, original VoIP article it was possible to import and use an international calling VoIP device once you took it to the telecom office and registered it. Although, was this really worth it since you would first need to have a $600 personal license for telecom equipment importation?
Good luck getting it licensed without proper documentation.
Not to mention…
It is completely legal for C&W to block this service, degrade its quality or route it half way around the world with no recourse to the end-user and for a simple reason – No telecommunications “service” can be offered in Barbados without the appropriate service provider license from the local ministry.
That may not be the exact wording, but its the right point.
Many believe VoIP is encoded and set as “packets” so that makes it “data”. That is subject to the legislative position in each individual Nation. C&W already won this battle in Dominica with a ruling which stated VoIP is a “Voice” service and therefore governed by the Telecommunications Act. Reading the new VoIP policy, you may notice similar suggestions and it is clearly stated on the telecoms.gov.bb website.
Also, the final approved and published VoIP document clearly indicates that these services such as Vonage (and other international calling services) can ONLY be purchased through local RESELLERS of the international service… I.E it would be ILLEGAL to bring in your own Vonage box. But, if there was a LICENSED service provider here with an ACTIVE reseller agreement with Vonage then you could LEGALLY use the service through them.
Proper VoIP Legislation Is Necessary – And Good To Have
It’s a little hairy if you’re now beginning to follow, but the VoIP legislation in itself is good. It will mandate specific quality of service levels for those who want to offer these services and the customer will benefit. Nobody wants to dump their landline for some half-real service that only works 20% of the time – and that’s what the government is trying to avoid. You must remember that Barbados earns alot of FX from international companies and international investors – two things make us attractive, a stable economy, and stable telecomms infrastructure – if you don’t believe me do a little reading.
The good thing with this legislation is that it will force greater local participation as the cost of entry is only around 3ooK for the full service license (about 1/2 the cost of other international/domestic licenses). What on the other hand will kill it, is C&W forcing those wishing to interconnect to purchase legacy equipment (probably double the cost of all your VoIP infrastructure combined) and pay another 400K+ in interconnect fees alone (these are numbers, not from C&W, but that have been reported to me).
This is where cost justification becomes a problem. The other issues of course remain to be the staggering costs of Bandwidth. Just this week i received quotes for 1.5mbps from leading dedicated internet access vendors (the type of service you need to be a real service provider managing QoS as stipulated in the licenses) at around 8 to 9 thousand Barbados per month (or approximately 100K per annum). And well, no reputable carrier is going to accept a compression codec below g729a, if which using, you can compress the Voice enough for maybe passing only 30-40 (absolute Max) simultaneous calls… So you’ll need a few of those 100K puppies to pass your international traffic – and thats what you want VoIP for right?
But… Add it all together and between the VoIP license, the interconnection fees, purchasing legacy equipment and half a million dollars a year worth of internet… Hrm. You’re probably selling your VoIP more expensive than existing land line services. And that’s not a business model that works.
Basically, the VoIP policy draft itself is good.
But the Government needs to do more to police the Interconnect policies, and also mandate the incumbents to allow interconnects on IP Platforms, not just old, useless legacy equipment thats large enough to command a mini data center (more costs) and which are overly expensive and provide a cost-of-entry barrier to local entrepreneurs .
This is just like the Microsoft Monopoly – “On the outside we’re always preaching interoperability, on the inside the engineers are working on the opposite”
Who’s to blame? C&W or the Gov’t? Well..
Here is a little secret…
Before C&W launched Netspeak, all VoIP was illegal – with or without an International license. Of course, it could just be a major “coincidence” that the update to the telecoms website clarifying who could legally provide VoIP came just 2 weeks after C&W launched their netspeak (December 19 2005). See below:
http://www.telecoms.gov.bb/FAQ/tabid/56/Default.aspx
“Is Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) legal in Barbados, if so, who can legally provide VoIP?
Answer: Any holder in Barbados of a Full Domestic Licence, Full Mobile/International Licence or an International Licence may legally provide VoIP in Barbados. These licences state that the holder may use Switch or Packet Technology or any combination thereof, to develop their networks. VoIP uses packet technology.
Holders of the above licences can be found under Major Licence Holders on this website.
Updated: December 19, 2005″
I could leak you legal correspondence showing what threats were made after Netspeak was launched… But I would lose my job.
Keep in mind, the government never paid out the C&W exclusive contract, only a portion in return for them to “allow” the government to offer licenses to other carriers. This will continue for the next few years until C&W’s contract expires. At this time, C&W will lose their veto on what local services can be offered and we will see a real liberalized market.
Until such time, it will be those companies who can play smart, find loopholes and have great lawyers who will succeed. All the rest of you will be sucking your teeth and racking your brains at what appears to be an impossible method of cost justification in order to retain a competitive advantage… under this system let me tell you now the riddle is over. It’s not possible.
Our thanks to BFP reader Kyle
Barbados Free Press 
this transition preference given to C & W under the guise of open competition has never netted them so much money.
Who and how are government friends sharing the wealth?
Maybe our esteemed Senator Fields or Minister Farley could shed some light on this lucrative transition period or maybe a knowledgeable blogger?
Here is a link to the government’s policy:
http://www.telecoms.gov.bb/Documents/Policies/Word/voippolicy.doc
Among other thngs it says that any private user can import a VOIP device and use it over the internet- UNREGULATED.
However, it is not legal to sell VOIP devices in Barbados without a licence, and therefore the name of the game is to educate the general public on how it may exercise its freedom of option. That way John public can make his/her own way and get through–cheap.
I do not understand why the BFP does not understand this. BFP, ,remember, is not a commercial site. Isn’t it there to help? Are you in the business of making money from telecoms in Bim?
Hi Concerned Citizen…
Thanks for your input. Our reader Kyle also makes some good points about the legality of C&W to block VoIP etc.
We never claim to know or understand everything, CC.
BFP is very much a place where learning takes place for all.
As far as the telecoms giving us money, if you know how to make this happen, great! How much do you think you can get us and what do we have to do ?
😉
And, oh yeah… how can we collect the money and remain anonymous? I suppose we could do the under a rock thing, but not on a regular basis or we’d be caught for sure!
🙂
Forgive me but if you have a DSL line and the VoIP headset/handest who is stopping you? That’s right no one!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I too, follow the VoIP developments and am concerned that your analysis of the present situation is lacking in many areas. I think Gov’t is acknowleding (in what by the way is clearly stated as a Draft Policy in the current advertisements) that there is no way it can get around VoIP the technology (even if not VoIP as a service which is a creation to protect the status quo) so long as it wants to permit access to the internet.
The dominance of C&W clearly remains intact but what ought to be understood is that the policy leaves room for the entrepreneur to be innovative -there are possibilities despite the high cost of bandwidth .
It is interesting to note that even with another undersea cable now landed in Barbados, that this cost remains high. The player is well funded and ought to be able to carry competition to C&W but this is not so. Is there a cartel at work?
Can any legal mind explain where “freedom of communication” as a privelege granted by the Constitution of Barbados, end? What gives Government the right to put a limitation of this freedom? In other words, why is a national permitted to use the technology as a right but not provide service with the same degree of freedom?
“Concerned Citizen” is referring to paragraph 5.5 in the voip policy… I think he may have misread it.
“All classes of VoIP Equipment may only be sold by companies registered in Barbados, and hold a valid Sellers and Dealers licence. End users may import VoIP Equipment for their own uses without a licence.”
The above paragraph only governs the importation of hardware and the use of such hardware without a license. It doesn’t however state you are free to use foreign VoIP services, and does not stopt he incumbants from playing with your traffic. Furthremore, this paragraph is violation of the Telecom Act which states no person may import any telecommunications device without a licence. Not to mention the same said “sellers & dealers” who have had their LEGAL IP-PBX equipment retained in the ports of Barbados for they even used the VoIP Protocols – even though not in a way that circumvented the incumbent. It’s staggering the way policy can hinder technological advancement.
Further, being intimately aware with telecoms and internet infrastructure – do not be fooled. VoIP packets are as easy to spot from an ISP level as it is to see the sun on cloudless day. Packet analyzers see everything including the protocols upon which you are transmitting data.
The same infrastructure is that allows them to protect you from malicious attacks can also see SIP, MGCP, h323 and all other voip protocols. Certain providers (I don’t feel the need to call names) have in Barbados before placed such packets as the lowest priority in the QoS (Quality of Service) list causing them to suffer poor quality. I am sure some of you were around when “yap jack” was blocked and several customers flocked to Freemotion who was the only provider circumventing C&W for international traffic via their VSAT.
Not to mention VoIP Devices must register with a “SIP Proxy” in order to gain access to the network – do you know how hard it is to block traffic to certain IP Addresses with a 1/2 decent DNS server? Well. it isnt hard at all.
So let me give you some key ones:
Vonage: 216.115.25.199:5061
Net2Phone: sip.net2phone.com (or 66.33.146.12)
And there you go, 2 lines in a DNS server and all traffic there vanishes into the big blue. Ask the Germans who did it to skype.
And lets not forget to look at our neighbours over there in Antigua. Good ole’ C&W enters into an agreement with the Government to block VoIP so that the Gov’t can retain its tax contribution from C&W (and C&W can retain its profit margins). And they’ll even send you to Jail for it! Here is one such article covering the topic: http://www.ezwim.com/97.310.0.0.1.0.phtml
If I only told you which political figures uttered the words that “government will not license a service that negatively affects the financial viabilty of C&W”… (and get this).. “For they have given so much to the Barbadian people.” you’d be shocked. very shocked.
Where is the fibre to our door? With a landscape PERFECT for mobile WiMAX (i.e. mobile internet) where is it? What have they done for the past 70 years but molest us with ridiculous bills and horrible service?!
Ohh.. and one last note to “Just Me”… this cannot be a draft policy if it has Cabinet approval which it received in August. Again, this policy (in development since 2005) finally comes available when C&W is getting ready to celebrate their 2 year head-start.
And if our government was serious about VoIP they would ask why C&W is only allowing home users to use VoIP and not business who really demand it. I could see the directors now “we don’t offer VoIP to business because we would lose too much money” . ohh right, thats not such an effective campaign – as if SHERONNE Really has so much family in France.
Also to those at BFP: thanks for putting up the truth (as usual).
P.S. The U.S. Federal Communications Commission (F.C.C.)’s page on VoIP.
http://www.fcc.gov/voip/
Once again the government in power pays their own lip-service to the claim of wanting to make Barbados “Internationally competitive” and once again they put-up another impediment of some –high cost– legislation to shatter the fact….
The VoIP legislation in Barbados should be minimal. In the case of the USA, it is true I forgot they did pass the 911 law because someone didn’t know the physical phone they were calling out on was a VoIP phone… As such, since it doesn’t use local central office switching the equipment 911 number wouldn’t work….. The FCC told all VoIP providers they have to find a way to route 911 calls correctly so as to not have a breakdown in the overall US 911emergency system. Examples brought up is what if you were staying in a hotel that had VoIP in each of the hotel rooms and you couldn’t reach emergency forces in an emergency. So that’s where that legislation came in.
As far as the one about call termination and so on. That was a lobbied piece of legislation. Verizon and other companies have been charging about $65-$70 per month phone service (with unlimited US long distance.) Vonage came along and started charging $14 when it first rolled out. This led to a flood of users trying to leave the land line and get Vonage(and others.) The Land line companies lobbied that they are hobbled by USF taxation and other fees that are added to US phone bills and they lobbied to have the same applied to VoIP providers…. Ofcourse they found some friends in congress and they added the fee thus forcing up rates on VoIP.
All I gon say is the Barbados gov’t better becareful on their “legislation” because most new phones that large businesses use are opting for VoIP instead of the old PBX systems that were popular in the 1980’s-1990’s if they craft crude legislation they will make it too expensive for LARGE- International companies to be based or do business in Barbados.
Nortel, Cisco, Avaya, Lucent etc. etc. etc. All of those business phones now use VoIP… With the passage of the wrong legislation those phones could be made illegal for businesses to have in Barbados too.
This also knocks Barbados out of the running for competing against India…. Many of India’s call centres appear to use VoIP to keep costs down and in order to use a US based 1-800# half way around the world. Why- would the BLP make Barbados’ economic future more shaky in terms of the Call Centre industry.
Jamaica has 50,000 workers in call centres. AOL just opened an office in St.Lucia.
I guess Barbados will be left behind if we are not proactive in this Computer age.
J. Payne, Hants,
You’re both quite right. The Legislations set to protect will be the one’s that do the most damage. Legislation which promotes the fastest rate of roll out and adoption is what will position us as a forward thinking cutting edge nation. Legislation forced on protecting C&W will not. My original post and updates to these issues will continue to be found on our blog at rumshopnews.com and we will continue to post here as well.
Kyle,
What happened to rumshopnews.com ?
William.
Talkbajan.com is Barbados’ VoIP authority. The best price and best service. I am extremely satisfied. Try it, and tell them Bajanboy referred you…Then I get $10 in Bajan Bucks towards my bill.
Excellent observation on this distinct area of
interest!
gKII