{"id":71373,"date":"2013-06-08T09:00:07","date_gmt":"2013-06-08T13:00:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.voipsupply.com\/blog\/voip-insider\/?p=71373"},"modified":"2016-12-08T17:29:59","modified_gmt":"2016-12-08T22:29:59","slug":"pay-phone-makes-comeback-in-saudi-arabia-skype-viber-banned","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.voipsupply.com\/blog\/voip-insider\/pay-phone-makes-comeback-in-saudi-arabia-skype-viber-banned\/","title":{"rendered":"Pay Phone Makes Comeback in Saudi Arabia"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"pay<\/a>

Lonely Pay Phone (Courtesy: Eric Hauser)<\/p><\/div>\n

If you’re trying to make a free phone call using Viber or Skype <\/a>in Saudi Arabia, forget about it.<\/p>\n

Dig up some change and use a pay phone.<\/p>\n

The telecom regulator in Saudi Arabia has suspended use of the Viber web-based communication service<\/a>, which normally allows users to make free calls and send free texts and photos.<\/p>\n

The Communications and Information Technology Commission (CITC) is the regulatory agency that issued this ban and the one who sent a warning back in March to Viber, Whatsapp, and Skype for breaking “local laws.”<\/p>\n

The thought is that “the kingdom appears to be pushing for greater control over cyberspace as Internet and smart phone usage soars.”<\/p>\n

Could it just be about money, like a lot of things usually are?<\/p>\n

Nandagopal J. Nair at Quartz <\/a>comments that:<\/p>\n

In the neighboring United Arab Emirates, many features of Skype and Viber are already blocked, but WhatsApp isn\u2019t. That might be a hint that, at least in the UAE, business interests are at play: Skype and Viber, unlike WhatsApp, allow users to make voice calls for free, and international calls are where the telecom operators are likely losing most of their revenue.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Via Reuters <\/a>and Quartz<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

If you’re trying to make a free phone call using Viber or Skype in Saudi Arabia, forget about it. Dig up some change and use a pay phone. The telecom regulator in Saudi Arabia has suspended use of the Viber web-based communication service, which normally allows users to make free calls and send free texts […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":11,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1217],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-71373","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-voip-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.voipsupply.com\/blog\/voip-insider\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/71373","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.voipsupply.com\/blog\/voip-insider\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.voipsupply.com\/blog\/voip-insider\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.voipsupply.com\/blog\/voip-insider\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/11"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.voipsupply.com\/blog\/voip-insider\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=71373"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/www.voipsupply.com\/blog\/voip-insider\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/71373\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":185133,"href":"https:\/\/www.voipsupply.com\/blog\/voip-insider\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/71373\/revisions\/185133"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.voipsupply.com\/blog\/voip-insider\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=71373"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.voipsupply.com\/blog\/voip-insider\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=71373"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.voipsupply.com\/blog\/voip-insider\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=71373"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}