Having used VoIP problem free for for ages I was confused as to why out of nowhere I had been having lots of issues. Sound quality has gone right down and latency issues have become markedly noticeable. Users on VoIP online forums in the US and other countries, including Germany and Mexico, have been noting similar problems since last year. For a while Voice over IP might seem like a good deal for the average person, entrenched interests in the telecoms industry view it differently - and are taking action against it.

Consultation

Mindful of what has happened in other countries the United Kingdom telecoms regulator Ofcom took the decisive step in February of announcing that it will look at the increasing VoIP industry and report next month on whether new laws are needed to shield it. The consultation document says: “VoIP service providers have expressed concern that their ability to provide a reliable service may be impacted by internet access providers (ISPs) selectively degrading or blocking their VoIP traffic.”

Ofcom says it has no proof this is occurring in the UK; only about half a million customers use VoIP. But the prediction is for that to go up by 2.5m in the next six months.

And VoIP blocking occurs in other countries, often those where there is still only a single telecoms company. In Saudi Arabia, for example national carrier Saudi Telecom is using software from US supplier Narus to bar all VoIP phone calls.

Telecommunication companies in the US and other countries are hesitant to have their bandwidth encroached on by traffic from which they earn no revenue and have been challenged over similar alleged incidents of VoIP blocking. Hindering internet telephony traffic is not easy but not illegal and barring precise kinds of internet traffic is on the increase.

Luxembourg-based VoIP provider Skype now owned by the pre-eminent auction site eBay has been particularly controversial. Skype is used by 75m people. But increasingly a lot of people do not want Skype on their network.

Skype is considered by a lot of people to pose a potential security threat as it creates an encrypted channel out of the network and forms supernodes that sit on a network and connect internet telephony calls. There is big debate about how much bandwidth such supernodes consume. There have been claims that in supernode mode, Skype could possibly saturate a 100 Mbps line.