SkypeOut is a telecom service and as such the company should be subject to EU telecoms regulation, the EU Court of Justice has ruled. The case was brought by the Belgian regulator BIPT against the company for failure to pay operator regulatory fees. Skype further lost a Belgian court case requiring the company to comply with a law enforcement request for access to user communications, a requirement for all telecom providers.
The Belgian court asked for an opinion from the EU court after Skype appealed the ruling. The court found that Skype, and in particular its SkypeOut service to call standard phone numbers, could be considered an electronic communications service, as defined under EU directives. The fact that users must pay for access to SkypeOut and Skype must make agreements with telecom operators to terminate the calls constitutes enough to consider it an electronic communications provider, the court said.
Skype had claimed it was only a software company, providing an interface for the VoIP calls, while the actual signals are carried by ISPs and telecom carriers. While Skype collaborates with these companies, it does not own or operate the networks. Its appeal will now go back to the Belgian court for a final ruling.
Other EU states had joined the case to support the Belgian argument, including Germany, the Netherlands and Romania. The ruling may have further consequences beyond Skype, as the court said that all VoIP providers that rely on PSTN operators to complete calls for a paid service would fall under the EU telecom regulation.
