Dear Slate, yes there are chocolate bars in China
Lot o' Hotpot: Three Travellers
Interview: Kerry Ann Lee, culture shock = inspiration
Garbage burning protests: The online life of dissent
Coming soon to a police checkpoint near you
Gadget blog Engadget brings us the latest news on Skype in China:
China's got some businesses to protect -- landline phone businesses, that is -- and it sounds like no Skype VoIP licenses (enabling, for example, SkypeOut calling) are to be issued for another two years over there per government intervention. That's bad, but what's worse is apparently China Telecom's declared the software "illegal" (we assume that claim carries over to other VoIP software, too -- and isn't law) and the government's experimenting with ways to entirely restrict Skype usage as they see fit (which is a little more difficult than flipping a switch on the Great Firewall, being that Skype runs on standard HTTP / HTTPS ports). Sure, VoIP is disruptive, and we all know it'd be best to let the carriers sort it out in the marketplace, but damned if this isn't one of the more visible hands, so to speak, that we've seen in a while.
Engadget got the story from the AFP, which got the story from the Financial Times. Here's part of the AFP story:
The government "is not going to issue VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) licences until 2008," Wang [Leilei, chief executive of Chinese internet portal group Tom Online] told the newspaper.The move would likely be major setback to Skype, which was reportedly in talks last year with Chinese telecom operators to launch its computer-to-telephone service, SkypeOut.
Shanghaiist uses SkypeOut to call family, although we haven't used it in a while, which reminds us: Call family more often.
Anyone having any Skype problems out there?
Also on Shanghaiist:
Ask Shanghaiist: Expat phone home
Damn you, China Telecom!
Skype 'optimistic' about future in China
add to stumble upon
add to reddit
post to facebook
I use skype a lot and have done for the last few years. It has saved me heaps of cash since my move to Shanghai two years ago. I have been getting critical errors between 25seconds and two minutes into a call, not sure if this is because I upgraded to the beta with the video call support (which drops calls all the time) or something else.
I have used “Skype Out” for the past few months with great success. It is much better than DialPad.com. However, when I went to recharge my account this week, the transaction failed. I tried to us my US credit card which has a Chinese address. I am not sure if the Chinese address is the problem??
I used Skype and Skype out from both Shanghai and from Qingdao without any problems last month.
I use skype quite regularly and it seems to work pretty much in the same way as always... mamahuhu!! Although I've had more droped calls in the past 2 months, since I updated the beta version.
Just bought some skypeOut credit 5 minutes ago... No problems with that either.
I cannot download Skyoe to my computer, I don't know why. I'm afraid all the news about that have something to do...
I use Skype regularly...almost daily....without any problems at all. It maybe that new skype subscriptions will somehow be blocked and you will not be able to download the platform. However, for those who have it already, call on.
My interaction with Chinese People has been very friendly and helpful. Sometimes there may be some internet glitches or computer hangup's. You can sign up for paypal and buy skypeout. Regarding downloading, you can check for your firewall problems or search online for other download sites.