Bangalore: Internet telephony firms and online phone service providers such as Skype are asked to set up servers in the country if they intend to continue offering the facility here. These firms are supposed to ‘segregate Internet Protocol (IP) addresses’ based on states, which allow the government to block social networking sites or any other websites and even Internet telephony in selected areas of the country.

As TOI reports, these decisions were made on April 23 in the presence of representatives from Intelligence Bureau, other security agencies, top police forces and senior officials of the telecom and IT departments in a home ministry meeting.

According to the minutes of the meeting as stated by ET, “Any service provider, who provides communication service in India via any media through Voice-own-Internet Protocol (VoIP) should be mandated to be registered in India, having its office, server located in the country and therefore, subject to Indian laws. Necessary provisions to this effect may be incorporated through amendment in Indian Telegraph Act, 1885 and Information Technology Act, 2000”.

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