China may soon ban Skype, the government's official newspaper said, potentially putting the popular Internet chat and phone service in the same boat as Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube.

According to the People's Daily , 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.

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