According to the , Chinese authorities have said that only China Telecom and China Unicom will be allowed to provide Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) services to customers.

Both China Telecom and China Unicom -- the former is the largest land-line telephone company in the country, the latter is the nation's second-largest 3G mobile carrier -- are state controlled.

The Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT), which published the ruling earlier this month, has not set a timetable for implementing the new VoIP restrictions.

When it does, Skype will probably be barred. "[This] is expected to make services like Skype unavailable in the country," the Communist Party's official paper said.

Since 2007, Skype has partnered with Chinese mobile Internet carrier TOM Online to offer a Chinese-language version of its client software. The joint TOM-Skype site was still available Thursday to users outside of China.