Is it time to say good bye to VOIP??

Just as the Department of Telecom, or DoT, has taken a call to bury IMEI-less handsets that could play into the hands of terrorists, reports suggest that your untraceable Voice over Internet Protocol or VoIP services may not live very long too.

Reportedly, India's Intelligence Bureau (IB) has instructed the Ministry of Communications and Information Technology to block all Internet telephony services in and out of India till DoT can devise a method to track such calls.

According to the report, "In the absence of Caller Line Identification (CLI) parameters of calls landing from abroad, it's next to impossible to identify the country of location of the caller. The calls passing through the VoIP/IP route contain inadequate parameters rendering it impossible to trace the actual callers. As DoT had conveyed that it is not possible to mandate transmission of CLI from abroad, IB has approached DoT to block such calls till a technical solution is found."

Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) recommended the lifting of restrictions on Internet telephony in the country in August 2008.

As per TRAI, there are around 34 companies providing VoIP services in the country. If the block is implemented, it is likely to disrupt the habits and businesses of many.