The Flat Planet and a Phone !

A number of my fellow bloggers wrote recently that the Mumbai terrorists used VoIP technology and how that complicated things for the local security forces.

Well, it ain’t true. As one comment explained on Preston Gralla’s post -

I live in India, and I can tell you from first hand knowledge that there are no data services fast enough to support clear VoIP transmissions over cellular phones. That is to say, no 3G. Only GPRS and Edge. There are also very few WiFi Hotspots designed for public use. The CST Station has one, the Taj would very well have dozens. But I assume that the power was out when the Commandos were storming the building. Satellite internet access may be possible. I saw in one of the pictures posted on the internet that they are using Thuraiya Sat phones. A simple net search shows that its a UAE based company and one of their models also acts like a modem, but they would still have needed line of sight with the sat, or installed repeaters inside the hotel. Very unlikely that they would have been using wireless VoIP in India.

A look at the original NYT article confirms this observation. The ones who were using VoIP were the handlers in Pakistan. They probably had a IP connection and then made calls out thru one of the many SIP providers who then passed on the call to the PSTN

Such a communications method is hard to track live, but it does leave, like any IP communications, a trail which the investigators are now following.