The Internet Interest Holders Group (IIHG), at a meeting held by the group yesterday, which was opened to all interested parties, said it was focusing its efforts at securing “free and fair internet”.
The IIHG, a body of internet café owners and managers which was formed following the Guyana Revenue Autho-rity (GRA) announcement that it will pursue and prosecute business that offer international telephone calls over the internet since it was “illegal”, and the Guyana Tele-phone and Telegraph (GT&T) company’s blocking of some software used to make international calls through the internet.
Thus far, at least one internet café owner has been forced to layoff staff.
The main argument of the group is that the ban on Voice Over Internet Protocol (VOIP) and Virtual Private Networks (VPNs) is illegal because the various internet café owners are paying GT&T for a service and not part of a service.
According to Head of the IIHG, Stephen Thompson, the body is seriously considering taking legal action against the telephone company. He said it was seeking to have an injunction against the company which will prevent it from continuing to block the VOIPs and the VPNs sites, until the mater is resolved in court. With this in mind, the IIHG has sought legal representation from the Fraser and Housty Law Firm. He said the group would also appeal to the authorities to have an amendment to the bill that covers communication in the country.
Speaking at yesterday’s meeting, Attorney-at-law Stephen Fraser pointed out that GT&T had no legal right over the internet service in Guyana, since it was never granted such right by the Public Utilities Commission (PUC).
However, Fraser said, internet cafés were in a difficult position, since apart from being targeted by GT&T, they were also being threatened by the National Frequency Management Unit and the GRA. With three agencies posing a threat, he said, the body had to make decisions that were in the best interest of all concerned and to think seriously about all the available options.
It was mentioned that GT&T had made an offer to internet café owners, which involved them paying US$60 for a “box”, a $10,000 monthly rental for DSL and buying minutes from GT&T to continue to use VOIP, but it is not clear whether the IIHG will accept this offer.
Meanwhile, Fraser said that when it came to the GRA, it was the responsibility of the internet café owners to pay value-added tax (VAT) once they crossed the $10 million income threshold.
Thompson himself called on the café owners to pay their taxes. However, it was suggested by some during the discussions that it was the GRA, which was responsible for collecting taxes and should implement measures to ensure that persons paid their taxes.
However, Fraser emphasized that the effort was always required from the person paying the taxes.
Meanwhile, Mark Court who was attributed with pioneering the concept of internet cafés in Guyana, said these cafes have been in existence for 12 years and he found it strange that suddenly there was an attempt to close them down.
Lost business
When contacted last week, some internet café managers indicated that to some extent, their operations had been affected. Based on telephone interviews with several managers, it has been noted that those who access the internet through a wireless system have not been affected while those who have dial-up or DSL have been affected.
Shaurwayne Blackman, the owner of Action Tek Internet Café said he had been affected “everyway possible”. He said certain sites like Net2phone have been blocked and have been “on and off” preventing the use of the site. He asserted that persons who went to browse the internet at his cafe have also been affected as at times the pages load very slowly. The internet café owner, who has been in business for the past five years, said that the situation was frustrating to customers and he has lost business. “It’s been rough,” he stated adding that he had had to lay off two employees.
He said internet cafes owners would not mind putting their businesses “straight” but a tax rate lower than the 16% VAT rate would be preferred. He said that for the past three weeks there had been a degradation of service but since he also has a wireless system certain operations were not affected much. He emphasized that if the situation continued he would have to reduce the hours worked and consequently the salaries paid to the remaining staff members. He pointed out that every year, he pays income tax.
Stephen Thompson of Netsurf.com said he has been on a virtual shutdown since he was unable to offer calls from both of his locations. He stated that access was blocked to websites where software to allow voice communication was sourced. But browsing was not affected though he stated that he had to reduce his staff while attempts are made to resolve the issue. He declared that his staff were committed to the café and it was hard to have the situation impacting on them. He said that a “grace period” should have been allowed while attempts were made to sort out the issues. Thompson was in the internet café business since 2000.
Another internet café manager, who requested anonymity said that the café had sold cards, through which call could be made at home and persons had complained that they were unable to use them since sites like Mediaring were blocked.
Wireless unaffected
Attempts during the course of last week to get a comment from GT&T Director of Rate Making, Gene Evelyn were futile while the company’s spokeswoman, Allison Parker said she could not speak without consulting senior officials.
Meantime, other internet cafes that utilize a wireless system said they were not affected while several others, which do not offer calls, were also not affected.
Meantime, according to the ‘Current System Status’ on the website of internet service provider, Inter.Net.Works, in an entry posted on December 2, it was stated that GTT had blocked all VOIP (through which calls are made) traffic on its network as of 3 pm that day and the company had been advised that the network policy was implemented based on a GRA policy on lost revenue from VOIP calls. Another entry posted later that day said that GTT had advised that the network policy on VOIP calls should not affect peer-to-peer messenger applications and the policy is intended to disallow calls to international numbers.
The following day, another post said the telephone company had advised that the current network policy on VOIP calls is similar to the current policy for DSL. All VOIP applications are explicitly blocked while peer-to-peer messenger services are not explicitly blocked. Blocked services are disallowed in-transit when the traffic traverses GTT’s data platform, the post said.
The last entry, on December 4 stated that GT&Ts current block on VOIP calls has not been revised and noted that the company’s technical department had successfully tested some mainstream PC to PC applications including Yahoo Messenger, MSN Messenger and Skype, which are not included on the GT&T’s blocked list and found them to be working. Well established PC to phone applications such as Net2phone and Mediaring remain blocked and do not work, the entry had stated.
The IIHG had, in a statement, said that it will comply with any reasonable taxation imposed on businesses and warned that the blocking of internet calls will severely affect over 7,000 persons. It had appealed to the government to make the necessary adjustments to resolve the issue “so as to ensure stability in this sector” and asserted that in previous instances, the government ruled in favour of services like Mediaring and Dialpad signalling their interest in innovation in the telecommunications sector.
The statement had declared that the restrictions and limitations on the use of these services is a blatant attack on the rights of citizens to the use of the internet. It asserted that the telephone company’s blocking of VOIP’s and VPN’s implies aggressively that the company’s services must be used to make international calls which happens to be more expensive and said that the service and rates of the GT&T can be much better.
The GRA, in a statement late last month had said that a large number of persons and entities have become illegally involved in the international telephone call business and the entity is moving to prosecute them. “These individuals and businesses have essentially created illegal telecommunications networks that employ authorized VSAT equipment for unlawful purposes or VSAT equipment without the requisite licenses, SIM banks, broadband, Virtual Private Networks (VPNs) and international Voice Over Internet Protocol (VOIP) providers like Vonage, Skype, and Packet 8 to offer outbound and inbound voice calls to the public for a fee. These operations are illegitimate and essentially result in tax evasion since no revenue is paid on these calls,” the GRA had declared.
It had said that such operations are increasing rapidly and its calculations indicate that their collective impact on the national revenue collection effort is too significant to ignore. Government has supported the revenue body and urged the entity to aggressively pursue the tax evaders and enforce the law.
