4 ms·

I'm from Egypt, I think it's more an economic than political initiative, telecom companies are among the last standing pillars of the economy and they are losin

by myf01d 10y ago

I'm from Egypt, I think it's more an economic than political initiative, telecom companies are among the last standing pillars of the economy and they are losing money more than ever as more and more people using chat software than talking using mobile phones or even using their shitty 3g internet connection which is still applied so far. Any connection on https is impossible to decrypt here anyway as our government isn't that competent.

SonicSoul 10y ago
so how does not being able to decrypt traffic make them lose money?
- myf01d 10y ago
  Telecom companies which employed tens of thousands mostly young educated because of the massive growth since early 2000s, have been facing now slowdown if not shrinking because most people here are now communicating for free using whatsapp and viber. These companies were doing also nasty things like injecting advertisement codes inside plain html pages to earn money, as most people here are browsing only facebook and twitter which use https, it became harder for them to compensate their losses on their main service (phone calls). They were colluding with the government to ban some chat apps on 3g communication and postpone new technologies like 4g and faster adsl connections in order to make people obliged to return to phone calls. The government knows very well that these companies are too big to fail as they are maybe the biggest employer in the country.
  - xarball 10y ago
    So their answer is corruption/fascism?
    - myf01d 10y ago
      > corruption/fascism that's what we call national security/stability here in the middle east :D. Seriously though, the government and the three telecom companies Orange/Vodafone/Etisalat falsely think that this is a win win situation to save the telecom industry and national security, however when it reall comes to terrorism, you can organize a terror attack using facebook chat without anyone knowing anything about you, maybe even after the attack if you are paranoid enough and take all social engineering precautions.
      - nindalf 10y ago
        FWIW this happens in other Arab countries too. In Dubai the same carrier Etisalat got a ban on the audio functionality of mobile apps - no calls on Whatsapp, Viber etc. You can still text though.
  - executesorder66 10y ago
    I work for a telcom company in Southern Africa. We make billions every year and a lot of that comes from data. Almost nobody makes phone calls these days. When LTE rolled out, the data usage basically doubled. When people have a fast connection they'll use it to watch endless youtube videos and other data hungry apps/services, and they will pay for it. So if Egypt's telcom companies want to make money, they need to upgrade their infrastructure. A huge initial cost, to be sure. But it will definitely pay for itself, and they will be raking in money before they know it.
  - derefr 10y ago
    > it became harder for them to compensate their losses on their main service (phone calls) If nobody's interested in voice service and you can't recoup your capital costs, why not just quit while you're ahead and stop providing voice service—thus at least freeing you from needing to pay maintenance on the voice infrastructure?
  - wruza 10y ago
    Do they also block gas because foresting companies have trouble to sell firewood?
- jpollock 10y ago
  Legal intercept requirements cost money for the incumbents. Telcos have substantial legal intercept requirements in all markets. If new entrants do not need to meet regulatory requirements, they can have substantially lower costs than the incumbents, allowing them to undercut them (for example, free text messaging). This applies in all markets, such as Air BnB suppliers' avoidance of fire safety legislation that hotels have to meet (and zoning, traffic, etc). Uber/Lyft's avoidance of taxi legislation, which is not necessarily about medallions. Some markets have licensing requirements which aren't applied to normal citizens (work hours and additional provision on license) [1]. Banking is a perfect example of this. You know those Visa cards that were offered by, say, Disney[2]? Offering a Visa card requires a banking license (which I understand is expensive and awkward), so they white-box an existing bank's cards (Chase does a lot of business here). New entrants can be reasonably asked to meet the regulations. If they choose to not adhere to local legislation, it is perfectly reasonable to bar them from operating in a market. There is a discussion on whether or not the requirement is sensible. That's for the locals to decide. With the passing of the UK's Investigatory Powers Act 2016 (Snooper's Charter), look for similar regulatory findings to start happening in the UK if there is significant pick-up of traffic on Signal. [1] https://www.nzta.govt.nz/commercial-driving/taxis-shuttles-buses-and-other-passenger-services/driving-a-passenger-service-vehicle/ https://www.nzta.govt.nz/commercial-driving/taxis-shuttles-b... [2] https://disneyworld.disney.go.com/visa-card/ https://disneyworld.disney.go.com/visa-card/
  - brian-armstrong 10y ago
    The markup on SMS is massive. Are you suggesting that prices are what they are because of regulatory issues?
    - jpollock 10y ago
      Carriers price based on total revenue per subscriber, not just the profit per type of service. So, while the markup on SMS is high (might not actually be high), the RPU (revenue per user) covers total network costs. As a cost, legal intercept isn't a drop in the bucket, and it has killed many an offering at a telco when they go to the regulator and the regulator says "you have to support legal intercept". The cost structure behind SMS is typically due to many of the carrier's suppliers charging the carrier per subscriber (or per SMS). This puts a floor on the carrier's cost structure, and encourages them to look at any lever they can pull to keep new entrants out. Legal intercept would be part of the package. I have no idea how big a cost it is, but I would expect it to be a definite profit center for the equipment supplier - regulatory tends to be bespoke, special snowflake software that the customer MUST HAVE or else they will be turned off. So, once a regulation is in, it's very easy to apply it as a barrier to entry. Imagine a mobile phone company starting up and not offering number portability. There is even history in the telco market and messaging services, RIM (BlackBerry Messaging) ran into the exact same issues in the Middle East and India over the same thing [1]. [1] http://www.pcworld.com/article/216651/article.html http://www.pcworld.com/article/216651/article.html
- walrus01 10y ago
  Not so much that, but a threat to the revenue model of the licensed gsm carriers. Same reason Skype and VoIP is illegal in the UAE.
Cyph0n 10y ago
Stop fooling yourself. It's completely about censorship. The focus of the Egyptian government since the coup has been suppression of dissent. The economy is a mess simply because too much time is being spent on making sure that no one criticizes the coup and the current regime. Moreover, I would understand blocking a more popular chat app, but targeting Signal specifically means that the government is worried about activists. I'd wager that 99% of average phone users don't even know what Signal is.

by myf01d 10y ago

SonicSoul 10y ago

so how does not being able to decrypt traffic make them lose money?

myf01d 10y ago
Telecom companies which employed tens of thousands mostly young educated because of the massive growth since early 2000s, have been facing now slowdown if not shrinking because most people here are now communicating for free using whatsapp and viber. These companies were doing also nasty things like injecting advertisement codes inside plain html pages to earn money, as most people here are browsing only facebook and twitter which use https, it became harder for them to compensate their losses on their main service (phone calls). They were colluding with the government to ban some chat apps on 3g communication and postpone new technologies like 4g and faster adsl connections in order to make people obliged to return to phone calls. The government knows very well that these companies are too big to fail as they are maybe the biggest employer in the country.
- xarball 10y ago
  So their answer is corruption/fascism?
  - myf01d 10y ago
    > corruption/fascism that's what we call national security/stability here in the middle east :D. Seriously though, the government and the three telecom companies Orange/Vodafone/Etisalat falsely think that this is a win win situation to save the telecom industry and national security, however when it reall comes to terrorism, you can organize a terror attack using facebook chat without anyone knowing anything about you, maybe even after the attack if you are paranoid enough and take all social engineering precautions.
    - nindalf 10y ago
      FWIW this happens in other Arab countries too. In Dubai the same carrier Etisalat got a ban on the audio functionality of mobile apps - no calls on Whatsapp, Viber etc. You can still text though.
- executesorder66 10y ago
  I work for a telcom company in Southern Africa. We make billions every year and a lot of that comes from data. Almost nobody makes phone calls these days. When LTE rolled out, the data usage basically doubled. When people have a fast connection they'll use it to watch endless youtube videos and other data hungry apps/services, and they will pay for it. So if Egypt's telcom companies want to make money, they need to upgrade their infrastructure. A huge initial cost, to be sure. But it will definitely pay for itself, and they will be raking in money before they know it.
- derefr 10y ago
  > it became harder for them to compensate their losses on their main service (phone calls) If nobody's interested in voice service and you can't recoup your capital costs, why not just quit while you're ahead and stop providing voice service—thus at least freeing you from needing to pay maintenance on the voice infrastructure?
- wruza 10y ago
  Do they also block gas because foresting companies have trouble to sell firewood?
jpollock 10y ago
Legal intercept requirements cost money for the incumbents. Telcos have substantial legal intercept requirements in all markets. If new entrants do not need to meet regulatory requirements, they can have substantially lower costs than the incumbents, allowing them to undercut them (for example, free text messaging). This applies in all markets, such as Air BnB suppliers' avoidance of fire safety legislation that hotels have to meet (and zoning, traffic, etc). Uber/Lyft's avoidance of taxi legislation, which is not necessarily about medallions. Some markets have licensing requirements which aren't applied to normal citizens (work hours and additional provision on license) [1]. Banking is a perfect example of this. You know those Visa cards that were offered by, say, Disney[2]? Offering a Visa card requires a banking license (which I understand is expensive and awkward), so they white-box an existing bank's cards (Chase does a lot of business here). New entrants can be reasonably asked to meet the regulations. If they choose to not adhere to local legislation, it is perfectly reasonable to bar them from operating in a market. There is a discussion on whether or not the requirement is sensible. That's for the locals to decide. With the passing of the UK's Investigatory Powers Act 2016 (Snooper's Charter), look for similar regulatory findings to start happening in the UK if there is significant pick-up of traffic on Signal. [1] https://www.nzta.govt.nz/commercial-driving/taxis-shuttles-buses-and-other-passenger-services/driving-a-passenger-service-vehicle/ https://www.nzta.govt.nz/commercial-driving/taxis-shuttles-b... [2] https://disneyworld.disney.go.com/visa-card/ https://disneyworld.disney.go.com/visa-card/
- brian-armstrong 10y ago
  The markup on SMS is massive. Are you suggesting that prices are what they are because of regulatory issues?
  - jpollock 10y ago
    Carriers price based on total revenue per subscriber, not just the profit per type of service. So, while the markup on SMS is high (might not actually be high), the RPU (revenue per user) covers total network costs. As a cost, legal intercept isn't a drop in the bucket, and it has killed many an offering at a telco when they go to the regulator and the regulator says "you have to support legal intercept". The cost structure behind SMS is typically due to many of the carrier's suppliers charging the carrier per subscriber (or per SMS). This puts a floor on the carrier's cost structure, and encourages them to look at any lever they can pull to keep new entrants out. Legal intercept would be part of the package. I have no idea how big a cost it is, but I would expect it to be a definite profit center for the equipment supplier - regulatory tends to be bespoke, special snowflake software that the customer MUST HAVE or else they will be turned off. So, once a regulation is in, it's very easy to apply it as a barrier to entry. Imagine a mobile phone company starting up and not offering number portability. There is even history in the telco market and messaging services, RIM (BlackBerry Messaging) ran into the exact same issues in the Middle East and India over the same thing [1]. [1] http://www.pcworld.com/article/216651/article.html http://www.pcworld.com/article/216651/article.html
walrus01 10y ago
Not so much that, but a threat to the revenue model of the licensed gsm carriers. Same reason Skype and VoIP is illegal in the UAE.

Cyph0n 10y ago

Stop fooling yourself. It's completely about censorship. The focus of the Egyptian government since the coup has been suppression of dissent. The economy is a mess simply because too much time is being spent on making sure that no one criticizes the coup and the current regime. Moreover, I would understand blocking a more popular chat app, but targeting Signal specifically means that the government is worried about activists. I'd wager that 99% of average phone users don't even know what Signal is.