Is VoIP fully LEGAL in India ?

Bennie

Disciple
Hi

I make a lot of calls from India to Australia/U.S. through the normal telephone line. Trying to determing if i can use a VSP like https://www.pennytel.com.au/ or https://www.mynetfone.com.au/ which will save me a lof of money.

I presumed that it owuld be OK to use VoIP in India and was actively looking for a VoIP router !

After searching the Net, I have found out that VoIP is supposed to be LEGAL in India, but then Wikipedia sugested something which I couldn't understand. !

Webpage describing the TRAI Press release: India TRAI Press Release legalizing VOIP - voip-info.org

Blog saying that VoIP is now legal (2008): Its official VOIP in India is now Legal | Free VOIP Solution Free calls Worldwide

But according to Wikipedia, here: Voice over Internet Protocol - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, it says...........

In India, it is legal to use VoIP, but it is illegal to have VoIP gateways inside India. This effectively means that people who have PCs can use them to make a VoIP call to any number, but if the remote side is a normal phone, the gateway that converts the VoIP call to a POTS call should not be inside India.

Now, what the hell does that mean ?

Can somebody explain ?
 
First VoIP is still a grey area in terms of legal matters.

As far as the gateway is concerned, if any1 call from USA using VoIP, then the CallerID should have +1 country code, and not that of india, ie +91....
 
vivek.krishnan said:
First VoIP is still a grey area in terms of legal matters.

It certainly appears that way !

As far as the gateway is concerned, if any1 call from USA using VoIP, then the CallerID should have +1 country code, and not that of india, ie +91....

I am not concerned about anybody calling from USA... All I want to know is if I can make VoIP calls to Australia/USA

Does anybody do that on these forums ?
 
Bennie said:
I am not concerned about anybody calling from USA... All I want to know is if I can make VoIP calls to Australia/USA

Does anybody do that on these forums ?

Yes, you can make calls to them, but gave the response I gave was was for :

In India, it is legal to use VoIP, but it is illegal to have VoIP gateways inside India. This effectively means that people who have PCs can use them to make a VoIP call to any number, but if the remote side is a normal phone, the gateway that converts the VoIP call to a POTS call should not be inside India.
 
As stated before, you can make VoIP calls outside India without any issues. Hell google chat has an option of calling US FREE!

But Within India you can NOT make a call which originated from your PC/softphone/SIP proxy(skype) to a user which is on POTS aka a normal mobile or landline. However PC to PC is fine. Only MNC's and other big companies are allowed to do that in India by TRAI(To save money on business front)
 
@OP, let me tell you this:

a. I have a VOIP at my home in Pune. It has US VOIP number.
b. I can make outgoing VOIP calls without any issues. It's legal.
c. I can receive VOIP calls directly via the voip device coupled to the wireless phone.

What's illegal is, to use the VOIP routers as gateway, so that when someones wants to call an Indian number, they can dial my US number, the device prompts the user and then the user dials the indian number, which in turn is dialed by the voip router to connect to the Indian number. This is illegal as you are directly shunting the Indian Telephony provider

Made any sense?

+LT
 
vivek.krishnan said:
Yes, you can make calls to them, but gave the response I gave was was for :

aaaahhhh..

So that condition is only for calling in. There are no conditions on dialing out using VoIP ?

Thanks for your reply.

--- Updated Post - Automerged ---

sh@sh! said:
But Within India you can NOT make a call which originated from your PC/softphone/SIP proxy(skype) to a user which is on POTS aka a normal mobile or landline.

yeah I think I get it now .. within India you can only use a PC to call another VoIP number.

But if you ar calling outside India, you can use a normal phone connected to VoIP router/ATA or you can use a VoIP phone !
 
Heard that Tata and few other vendors are providing VoIP services in Mumbai.

So, VoIP is very much legal.

Better be in touch with them so that you can have a clear view of legalities.
 
Bennie said:
aaaahhhh..

So that condition is only for calling in. There are no conditions on dialing out using VoIP ?

Voip Calls

India to phoren - OK!
Phoren to India - OK!
India to India - NOT OK! (Except PC to PC calls)
 
Julian said:
Voip Calls

India to phoren - OK!

Phoren to India - OK!

India to India - NOT OK! (Except PC to PC calls)

It's not that simple dude, the legal matters are more directed towards PSTN gateways, wherein a voip terminates into a PSTN network and them some wireless network. Its very simple to do this and one can make quick bucks. That's what's not allowed.

+LT
 
linuxtechie said:
It's not that simple dude, the legal matters are more directed towards PSTN gateways, wherein a voip terminates into a PSTN network and them some wireless network. Its very simple to do this and one can make quick bucks. That's what's not allowed.
What you're talking about is something like those illegal voip based mini-exchanges some 'enterprising' folk started a couple years ago and got caught.

What I'm trying to say is that on a more basic level, as per DOT rules, a voip call FROM india cannot terminate to a phone number IN india.

--- Updated Post - Automerged ---

Now that i look at it again, I think that's what you're saying too, i was just trying to make it simple.
 
linuxtechie said:
It's not that simple dude, the legal matters are more directed towards PSTN gateways, wherein a voip terminates into a PSTN network and them some wireless network. Its very simple to do this and one can make quick bucks. That's what's not allowed.

+LT

Man, I am trying to make it simple...in laymans terms. And you just started talking Wikipedia language ... :p OHT

--- Updated Post - Automerged ---

Julian said:
What you're talking about is something like those illegal voip based mini-exchanges some 'enterprising' folk started a couple years ago and got caught.

hmm...is that when you dial a local number from your home phone and a guy at the other end asks your PIN and then connects you to overseas destination ?

Julian said:
What I'm trying to say is that on a more basic level, as per DOT rules, a voip call FROM india cannot terminate to a phone number IN india.



Yeah...I get that bit ..
 
Bennie said:
hmm...is that when you dial a local number from your home phone and a guy at the other end asks your PIN and then connects you to overseas destination ?

Not sure how it works exactly, i wasn't involved personally ! :p

But it was in the news, it was a pretty organized operation, they supposedly cause 'crores' of loss to MTNL etc. but we know how all those figures are calculated like when they catch a street vendor selling a handful of movie cds worth 'lakhs'!

Bottom line is, India, with its draconian laws and dry days and crap like that will never give full freedom to its citizens because there's just too much money to be made by not doing so. So don't expect voip to be legal to that extent. even now with the legal bits, it's not that simple to use voip like abroad.

One of my friends, way back in 98 or something got a vonage voip phone from his sis in the US and just plugged his triband into it. i'm pretty sure he could make calls to indian numbers too if he wanted. so the tech has been around for ages, just don't expect the govt. to make it easy NOT to be ripped off.

//drunk rant over...
 
Julian said:
Not sure how it works exactly, i wasn't involved personally ! :p

But it was in the news, it was a pretty organized operation, they supposedly cause 'crores' of loss to MTNL etc. but we know how all those figures are calculated like when they catch a street vendor selling a handful of movie cds worth 'lakhs'!

Bottom line is, India, with its draconian laws and dry days and crap like that will never give full freedom to its citizens because there's just too much money to be made by not doing so. So don't expect voip to be legal to that extent. even now with the legal bits, it's not that simple to use voip like abroad.

One of my friends, way back in 98 or something got a vonage voip phone from his sis in the US and just plugged his triband into it. i'm pretty sure he could make calls to indian numbers too if he wanted. so the tech has been around for ages, just don't expect the govt. to make it easy NOT to be ripped off.

//drunk rant over...

Exactly, I have the same equipment with me and believe me, its child play to setup the 'mini exchange', lets call it gateway. I was gonna do it for my sister in US but then wasn't too comfy :)
 
well little bit on business calling and personal calling.

someone mentioned here few business giants are allowed to use VOIP in india.. - not true. here is how it happen

VOIP - VOIP within VPN network of business in India - perfectly allowed.

VOIP - Analog phones (Landline phone / Mobile phone in india)

If calls made from India but routed to PSTN Gateway out of India (US/UK) and then land back to India = perfectly allowed

If calls made from India but routed to PSTN Gateway IN India and then land back to analog phones = Not possible as TRAI dosent allow you to host PSTN gateway in india.

PC - PC calling withing India is OK but when it comes to PC to Analog phones (where gateway comes into picture) our large telecom players put presure on TRAI not to allow such things else everyone will take 256K broadband plan and make hell lot of calls :)

summary - VOIP allowed but Gateway's are not allowed so our telecom players continue to make money....dirty politics from TRAI side.
 
One of my friends was working at L&T a few years ago and they used to make a lot of voip calls to the US for official business. Can't remember the exact name of the type of line/connection used. Some time after he left the company (lucky for him), there was a big scandal about the 'illegal' use of these lines to call abroad and a few senior officials were arrested/investigated. Of course L&T being a huge company, nothing would have come out of it and it was all hush-hushed.
 
I wonder sometimes if there are two different governments running the country ...

One talking of progress and other still entrenched in draconion laws..

Its a consumerist world today. Adapt or perish.

Well, the new telecom draft policy seems to be a step in the right direction.
 
Bennie said:
Well, the new telecom draft policy seems to be a step in the right direction.
I wouldn't be too optimistic about that if i were you. it's been years now that they're screaming about broadband penetration and the only thing they're penetrating is our backsides with crappy FUPs and still 3rd world speeds. Eventually, they will find some way to rip us off.
 
Julian said:
I wouldn't be too optimistic about that if i were you. it's been years now that they're screaming about broadband penetration and the only thing they're penetrating is our backsides with crappy FUPs and still 3rd world speeds. Eventually, they will find some way to rip us off.

It will be all talk and no work. Finally some1 will file RTI and then they will say that it is not feasible technically or some BS.
 
That is one way to look at it but another thing which needs to be considered is that if voip calls are made free then the call rates of our gsm network would go up ( like in US ). just my thoughts
 
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