PUNE, January 29: Net telephony, which was stamped illegal by the Videsh Sanchar Nigam Ltd (VSNL) in its letter on the Internet, seems to be quite a task for VSNL. VSNL general manager VSRK Sarma refused to divulge the modus operandi used to track the defaulters or the number of defaulters, if any. At the same time, he maintained that the world over everbody is trying to come up with a technology to counter this menace.Net Telephony is seen as an easier and cheaper way of communicating which also helps people in capitalising on the Net connection that they have paid for. Banning users on the Internet for using net telephony could be a setback to VSNL's bottomline although Sarma denied this. He said, "We are not doing this due to the losses for VSNL, which is a long-term effect. We are doing this because of the country's policy."
It may be recalled that VSNL has warned its users against using Net Telephony with the threat of debarring them from access to the Internet in case of non-compliance. The mailfrom VSNL says, "You are advised not to use Internet for telephony or fax applications. VSNL would be monitoring the use of the Internet and those subscribers who are violating the conditions of subscription will be permanently debarred from using Internet services." The question remains about how VSNL plans to keep track of these Net calls? As sound travels digitally over the Net, it will be difficult to track and distinguish it from any other type of data.
VSNL has been accused of charging arbitrarily high rates for international calls, its mainstay for revenue. Net telephony uses only the minimum bandwidth between telephones resulting in live data connection. According to Sarma, Net telephony is a common problem faced by other countries as well. He admitted that while research to find a solution is being done, none has yet emerged.
Copyright © 1998 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.
