media - How illegal are the VoIP-services?

There is an ongoing stream of articles suggesting that the VoIP-services (making phone calls over the internet, like Skype), will be banned till 2008, like this one. They suggest that interner users in China cannot use those services.
It suggests a profound ignorance on how those things work in China. First, those services have always been technically illegal, but that has not stop its usage. Stories of for example Skype calls being stopped are at best anecdotical and most feedback from China suggests there is no problem.
Why are the media then reporting about this non-problem? Probably because it fits the way they want to frame the China-story: that would include a preference for blocking things. Very disturbing.