MUSCAT — Telecommunications Regulatory Authority (TRA) has banned the much popular cyber café internet telephony, putting an end to cheap phone calls patronised mainly by expatriates from the subcontinent.

Putting a reality check on the virtual world, the TRA, in the notice issued on March 7, 2007 warned internet cafes against providing basic voice service. Punishments for violators ranges from imprisonment of upto two years and fine between RO5,000 and RO50,000. Following the notice, internet cafes have promptly put a plug on the phone services leaving behind scores of disappointed customers.

For the past two years, many cyber cafes were making use of the Voice Over Internet Protocol (VoIP) technology to provide cheap phone services for customers to make international calls. Many people, who earlier used to crowd around telephone booths, especially on Fridays, were hooked to cyber cafes. Experts have opined that this trend had slowly begun to affect telecom operators like Omantel, Oman Mobile, and Nawras.

Internet telephony to call near and dear ones in their home countries became attractive for expatriates as it was cheaper than the landline or mobile phone rates which ranged anything between 180 baisas to 250 baisas per minute to the subcontinent. Increasingly, internet telephony became the norm pushing aside even Yahoo and Hotmail messenger services.

Soon a host of cyber cafes sprang up everywhere, which were being used more as telephone booths than as internet browsing centres. The regulatory authority seems to have taken note of all this and imposed this ban.

The hard-hit are Indians, Pakistanis, Bangladeshis, a majority of whom are low and middle-income category expatriates working in the Sultanate.

The following is an excerpt of the TRA warning (issued on March 7, 2007). “The Telecommunications Regulatory Authority (TRA) noticed lately that a number of Internet cyber cafes offer basic voice service through the internet provided by foreign companies that are not licensed to provide telecom services in the Sultanate.”

This is done with the aim of avoiding payment of charges payable against the provision of the licensed voice service that only Omantel is licensed to offer in accordance to the license issued by Royal Decree No. 20/2004.

This is an evident violation of the Telecommunications Regulatory Art issued by the Royal Decree No. 30/2002 which states in article (20), “No person is permitted to establish or operate a Telecommunications System, nor provide telecommunications services, unless after obtaining a license pursuant to the provisions of this Act, except it is decided to exempt him pursuant to the regulations to be issued for this purpose.”