Internet Phones Giggle
From a teeny-tiny article on page 2 of today’s Kuwait Times:
‘Phone’ Teams Honored
Kuwait: It is important to reduce charges of international calls to prevent illegal activities, Communication Minister Dr. Maasouma Al-Mubarak stressed yesterday.
In a press conference held on the occasion of honoring the team of the ministry’s telephone control department, Al-Mubarak said the department succeeded in cooperation with the Interior Ministry in locating and stopping illegal international calls dealers praising their efforts that continued despite the dangers they faced.
My comment: I’m sorry. I truly mean no disrespect. And at the same time I am having a very hard time trying to maintain a straight face. Oh, these dangerous telephone callers out there!
• Raiding brothels.
• Chasing drug dealers.
• Dealing with arrogant/immature/drunk/drugged drivers.
• Family disputes involving knives and guns.
• Protecting the borders, land and sea.
All of the above can involve serious dangers. One of the axioms in policing is that your most dangerous call is getting between a fighting husband and wife. But the bravery of raiding telephone call centers? Please. Spare me.
You can’t turn back the clock. Technology has given us a whole new way of making international calls. The MOC can spend its resources fighting a numerous enemy – people who want to make reasonably priced phone calls – or they can become a part of the solution, regulating and encouraging growths of new technologies to the greater good of all.
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Amazina
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Here There and Everywhere 
I don’t get it. “Illegal international calls”? Making calls without paying?
There seem to be two issues, 3baid, intertwined and confused. One is the hijacking of land lines, where techies hack into a land line and then sell time on it so the very poor can make phone calls. Hijacking a land line is totally illegal, hands down, no question.
The second issue is the internet phone services, which were banned last week. Almost every expat who has a computer calls home through an internet phone service. It keeps families together – Dad or Mom is here on a contract, but can talk with the kids almost every morning or night. It just helps. Husbands can talk with wives. Daughters can talk with mothers. NOT using the land lines, but using connections that are paid for through through their internet provider. These services – Vonage, Net2Phone, Skype, etc. now all have the big FORBIDDEN sign when computer users log on.
Enough stupidity & ignorance please!!!!
I mean, it’s the 21st century for crying out loud!
Kinan, sadly, if the policy continues, it means that there will be thousands of citizens breaking the law every day, just by making internet phone calls.
lol expat, judgeing from the ‘tone’ of this post i think youve come to realise what it is that makes kuwait “special”, even amongst its neighbours.
thats “special” in a short bus kinda way 😛
Is that even enforcable? They can actually block vonage?
See in some cases you dont have to actually log in to anything you just pick up the phone and call but you make the call as if you’re calling from the US or from Europe or wherever the company you’re using decides. I’m just wondering if it’s possible at all to even block that.
Aside from that, as a Kuwaiti, I am embarassed that this law even came out.
Yes, 1001, so far there is that loophole. Thank God the telephone-line police have bigger fish to fry than to go door to door searching for illegal internet phones. And . . . when we pay for an internet service, shouldn’t we get full benefits of that service, including internet cellphony?