For Some Countries, Skype Too Open, BlackBerry Too Closed

Research in Motion isn't the only company facing government interference in the United Arab Emirates and other countries over its phone service. In its filing with the SEC to raise up to $100 million through an IPO last week, Internet phone provider Skype pointed out that "certain countries have made the use of one or more of our products illegal or are reported to have prohibited or blocked access to our website."

Among these is the UAE and Egypt. Access to Skype's site and products has reportedly been blocked since 2006 for undisclosed reasons. Numerous VoIP sites have been blocked in connection with a national ban on such applications, according to an August 2009 report by the OpenNet Initiative (ONI), a partnership that tracks the Internet filtering and surveillance practices of countries worldwide. Skype's IPO filing also states that in March the Egyptian National Telecommunication Regulatory Authority (NTRA) announced it was banning Skype on mobile devices under a law that international calls must pass through a long-distance calling gateway controlled by an Egyptian company. Skype said it believes its services can still be accessed through fixed broadband and Wi-Fi connections in Egypt. But unlike RIM's BlackBerry platform, which the UAE, Saudi Arabia and India have recently threatened to ban because it's too closed, issues with Skype likely stem from the very openness of its peer-to-peer technology. Its system relies on the existing Internet connections of its 124 million "connected" users rather than its own network infrastructure.