Slashdot Mirror
Should Voice-over-IP Be Regulated?
dj_due asks: "Here in the Philippines where technology is still catching up, the NTC (equivalent of FCC) will regulate the use of voive over IP, and currently it is not allowed. They proposed that ISP's who engage in internet telephony will be required to pay the telco's access charges. Should the telco's care if we make our phone calls over the Internet?" I can see reasons why telephone companies might want to control VoIP technologies but only as long as telephone lines remain the current way people connect to the internet. With broadband technologies coming of age, people will find other ways to connect to the internet, bypassing the telephone companies entirely. Do you think allowing telco's control of how VoIP is shaped may be setting a dangerous precident for later?
~~~
I agree. Furthermore, there should be a road tax on aircraft.
Capitalism is inherintly opposed to free markets. The goal of entities (companies, individuals) in a capitalist system is to maximise return on investment (capital); allowing a market in which competitors can show up and eat one's lunch is detrimental to those who are making money off the existing system.
If I am lending u my roads(telephone lines) for some price then I expect u guys to use it in the way I want, not in the way u want. Fair-unfair, doesn't really matter for me, as long as I am the boss.
By that arguement, modems are not to be permitted except over privatly owned communications equipment. AT&T NEVER liked modems.
There is also a matter of semantics. Suppose I get a phone line. It is provided to me so that I can place and recieve voice phone calls to other people of my choosing. I am free to say whatever I like, and can even play them an mp3 file if I like. How would a VoIP company be violating that expected use? They pay for the lines, they accept and place calls. They just happen to play back and make digital recordings in real time, in accordance with the wishes of the calling and recieving parties.
You left out the punchline! The ILECs lobbied heavily for the interconnection fees listed in item 1 believing that with a larger customer base, it would heavily favor them during the critical start-up time for the CLECs. That's what caused 2 to happen.
That's the danger of designer legislation :-)
One of the problems with VOIP is that it needs to be higher priority traffic than normal traffic- it pretty much needs guaranteed bandwidth. The problem is that we probably can't have ALL the bandwidth on the internet being high priority.
Paying more for voice grade QOS does make sense (it costs more to provision), but that should go to the network provider, not the phone company, and then, only for packets tagged for the higher QOS (no matter what they are actually carrying). Voice packets that are not tagged should cost no more than any other UDP packet.
You need to look at why all these regulation were enacted in the first place. It basically comes down to the fact that laying cable is expensive. Ineffort to get company to lay cable to rural farms and such, you needed to grant them a monompoly over the whole system so that the cheaper city cables will balance out the expensive rural ones. The same thing was done with electric power. Then all sorts of regulations were added to regulate the monsters (monopolies) thet they created.
Wireless and Data-over-power-lines. Aren't quite up to snuff - probably wont ever be for broadband.
He's probably a Naderite..
(All The Worlds Problems) + Regulation = Peace & Happiness
...
A program is a device used to convert data into error messages.
Wait a second.. I already pay my local telco $80/month for my 1.2/1 DSL line. I pay my ISP $20/month so that my DSL line can be connected to the rest of the net. Most ISP lease their lines from telcos anyhow so they are ALREADY paying telcos for the lines. So on top of what I and my ISP is paying.. now they are going to have to PAY extra if that bandwith is used for VoIP?
Some thing sounds very wrong here.
DNS, for example. Which is not to say there aren't other means for limiting it. See swb's post for example.
DNA just wants to be free...
... and then the Internet collapses, because UDP doesn't have any sort of congestion control facility. TCP congestion control is one of the only things that keeps the whole mess from deadlocking in one big mass of overwhelmed routers.
This reminds me of the time someone here was screaming when they found out about TCP congestion control in the Linux kernel. They insisted that it was stupid that anything should be preventing their packets from getting full priority, and it should be ripped out. A lot of people seemed to agree.
Man, can someone say "tragedy of the commons?"
DNA just wants to be free...
communications infrastructure that they never even paid or helped pay for.
... clients pay for local call to ISP, same as any other local call. ISP pays for bandwidth from phone company or other owner of infrastructure. In turn, this provider often pays a chain of upstream providers that are generally phone companies or similar.
Umm
Why should it matter if your traffic is voice, text, video, whatever?
This is horrible precedent. Luckily it's not local. Still, not a good sign.
Nice, except my ISP isn't a dial-up, and they don't get their bandwidth from a telco. It's not just telcos handling the cables anymore.
In that case, traffic gets from client to ISP by cable or whatever other means so they shouldn't get revenue anyhow since it's not their network. After that, when it does cross their network it is through a link (OC3, T1, whatever) that is being paid for.
I fail to see how this is ripping them off. After all, they set the price for the T3.
If everyone uses their cable-tv connection for their phone type transmissions then the telco no longer needs to have connections to every building. Their main sources of revenue have become obsolete! Oh no! Did anyone levy taxes on computers to reimburse typewriter companies? Is it fair to ask producers of hydroelectric and nuclear power to subsidise coal mining? Should it be law that if you buy a toilet you must also purchase an outhouse so that they outhouse companies can still make a profit? I could make up more analogies but they probably wouldn't help.
One of the problems with VOIP is that it needs to be higher priority traffic than normal traffic- it pretty much needs guaranteed bandwidth. The problem is that we probably can't have ALL the bandwidth on the internet being high priority.
Therefore having a higher tarrif for higher priority traffic probably is the way to go. (Some scheme like a free number of packets per month might work too...)
I see your point but draw the opposite conclusion. If there is insufficient low latency bandwidth available for this purpose, does that not make it self-regulating? If your international call is getting too lagged and it's important to you, you would pick up a normal phone and pay the fee for a direct connection.
See?
What's wrong with that?
You might argue that it still reduces the use of the phone network. Yeah, it does. But it will cost less to maintain and they can charge more for it. I don't see any reason that won't balance.
Phones were regulated because:
Infrastructure was expensive, hard to build and required rights of way.
Investment horizons were in the 25-100 year range
It was the creation of a new public utility.
The flip side of guaranteed rates of return is regulation needed to insure that.
Do we need a guaranteed rates of return for netphones? Do we need to eliminate competition just because MegaTelco can't move out of its own way? Do we need to erect MORE barriers around the local CO? Do we want to ceed rights of way, or spectrum to more private companies? Regulation is a mixture of good and bad. Here's a brief list:
Almost universal phone coverage paid for by taxes so that anyone who really needs a phone can get at least some service.
Expensive residential service that subsidizes business service discounts.
Extremely slow pace of technology or service change.
Non existant customer service.
On the whole a very reliable system.
A complex Byzantine billing and tariff structure designed to make competition harder not easier.
Is this what you want for VoIP?
for the past two years or so my friends (computer dorks or not) have been relying on AIM instead of phone calls to make plans and get gossip around. No sense in picking up the damn phone, you can talk to 15 people at once on AIM. All the people moved off campus and needed to get DSL to make sure that they could stay connected to AIM.
:)
Even though VoIP may not be for the non-techno savvy AIM is and it is useful.
I pay my ISP to service the line I lease from my telco.
They're already charging me for use of their equipment. What's next? Charging me for using LICQ or GAIM instead of making a phone call?
I'm paying them for a high-bandwidth connection and how I use that connection, so long as it is legal, is none of their business. There is no defense for gouging consumers at every possible point and their complaints begging for regulation are rediculous.
---
seumas.com
Likewise, auto-makers should be levied an additional tax which would subsidize the horse-breeding and equestrian 'industry' for the loss in revenue that the new technology (automotives) have torn from the hands of the horse-trade, by using the same streets with an alternate vehical as a method of transportation of individuals from one location to another.
It is only fair that new technologies and services be responsible for continuing the financial well-being of the services and past technologies they are making obsolete.
---
seumas.com
Tried the same thing in some Caribean Countries. If I remember correctly it is still illegal in Jamicia.
A Chinese buffet in my area actually does allow doggie bags (actually, they're styrofoam containers), but they charge a per-weight-unit fee for them. I see no other way to prevent abuse.
--
Then dsl came out, so people started to buy these copper lines for 60 bux a month, and transmit faster than t1 speeds.
Soon the Telco's learned about this, you cant buy a plain unloaded copper line anymore for 60 bux...
Thou, I dont see VOIP being a risk, MSN/AOL/ATT are giving it away for free. ;)
No offence, but the 15kbps audio stream I listen to once a week (it's football commentary) occasionally dies due to net congestion somewhere between the server and my PC. It also uses a 5-6 second buffer to attempt to prevent this occurring.
If such a low bandwidth stream can't even reliably be delivered even with 5-6 seconds of buffering, then 128kbps of streaming - both ways - with 0 seconds buffering (unless you want a really odd phone call) is pretty sodding unlikely.
I'm not saying it can't be done, just that the internet today isn't going to like it.
~Cederic
This is where capitalism almost always seems to fail "new" technology.
We see it with MP3s, vidoe streaming (known as "broadcasting" is Oz), alternative fuels for cars; and a whole range of other essentially good and sound technology having the wind screwed out of its sails (and sales) due to the threat it poses for an existing, secure, cash-cow market filled with very large companies with far reaching opinions, that were built on the back of past "new" technology.
Given the profit margins most telcos can generate - they've more than covered any initial infrastructure outlays and on-going maintenance costs...
Besides, the telcos shouldn't be looking to lock out and regulate the voice over IP technology, they SHOULD be pioneering it!
'sapientia potestas est'
Voice over IP is cool stuff. The thing is, unless inet protocols change, there are some serious problems with it. The current courtesy system of the internet makes TCP back off when it notices that high priority UDP packets want space. This could cause some problems. A friend who uses VoIP said once that since he is on a subnet which sees a lot of traffic, he initially gets delays of up to 2 seconds for his datagrams to get where they are going.. but as TCP notices the UDP packets, and backs off, he gets a solid stream. Any decent hacker will notice potential to use and abuse this feature to get priority bandwidth. Should VoIP be regulated because it 'infringes' on traditional telcos? No.. if the telcos become irrelavent, then they become irrelavent. It's happened before, and it will happen in the future. Should VoIP be investigated further, because the 'polite' nature of the internet allows possible abuse of bandwidth resources? yes -Laxitive
In the fall of 1999 Era GSM, a private GSM company in Poland, began to allow customers to make international calls via VoIP. It was transparent to end users, as all VoIP should be.
This lasted two months? Maybe three? By law all calls leaving Poland have(had?) to go through Telekomunikacja Polska (TPSA), the national telco. The courts found out about the service and of course ordered it stopped.
(One wouldn't want a Pole paying less than 15% of their monthly income for a one-hour call to the states now, would they?)
People commenting "how do you detect..." need to realize that governments don't need to detect anything. (Though it would be easy in Poland where the vast majority of Internet traffic goes through one TPSA link to the US via teleglobe.net... even traffic destined for Germany!) Just hearing about a business circumventing laws is enough to start the machine moving, and let me tell you that machine is frightening.
And since VoIP is recognized as just another way to make a telephone call, it is regulated as such. Why should it receive any special consideration?
If telco's are a chief provider of bandwidth to the "last mile" and there's nothing they can do about VoIP happening (crypto and open source kick ass), then maybe they should find a way to profit from it without lobbying for policy and laws.
Lobbying for all that costs money...lots of it...and if the law is challenged in the courts...that's a big hidden cost. Cost of the due diligence work of monitoring traffic for VoIP costs money too. And just how good a reputation will a telco get by prosecuting individuals or groups for finding a way to use equipment they own and bandwidth they pay for to excersize their rights to free speech (if in a country where free spech is protected)...probably not a good one. I'd switch long distance companies over that practice....in fact I'd organize a boycott if y'all would help me.
It makes more sense to to have a three-pronged billing scheme: One for packets only, one for switching only and one for both. DSL makes this entirely possible over the same hardware layer. This way, the company gets to charge appropriately for the use patterns of the user without having to restrict what they do. This also saves them added security costs of a restricted system because it won't be restricted. It's also cheaper to tell the diference between a phone conversation and packets than it is to look at all the packets and tell one protocol than the other...so the billing scheme's fraud detection scheme is cheaper to implement than for a restricted system.
Think about it. The capabilities exist, and the geeks are geeky enough to implement VoIP in such a way that it's extremely difficult and costly to tell if someone's using VoIP. It costs a lot to put restriction and the needed security to make it happen in place. Any corporation would be more prudent and practical in changing their billing scheme to best make use of market conditions rather than spend lots of money trying to dictate market conditions, and HOPING that it works.
"Let him go, Ralph. He knows what he's doing." --Otto Mann (simpsons)
If, as is starting to become feasable, it was possible to choose between different phone companies, you wouldn't have the problems you describe. When offered the choice between a phone company that does as you describe and one that doesn't, people will pick the one that doesn't. Even if they all do that, eventually some bright guy will realize that they can steal all the other people's customers if they stop.
Mod down posts with a "Free Mac Mini/iPod" sig, they're spam!
First, by living away from large concentrations of people, you are consciously removing yourself from many of the benefits and services that are otherwise offered. By regulating certain services as mandatory, you allow them to access it (while making it more expensive for the rest of us, thanks), but you don't cover everything. Ok, phone and electricity. What about internet? Wait, you're covering that. What about cable TV? Pizza delivery?
For electronic stuff, people seem to find a way regardless. No cable? Get satellite. These days, satellite could cover TV, phone, and internet all at once.
Maybe regulation really was necessary to make sure everybody got their phones in the 30s, or whenever it was. But today, the technology is so cheap, there's no need anymore. How much would it cost to wire your hypothetical town of 180? I'm thinking 802.11 cards with roof antennas. Run internet and phone over it at the same time. Share your link to the outside. If no company thinks it would be profitable enough, the townspeople can start their own. Enough of this helpless government-must-provide-everything stuff.
Mod down posts with a "Free Mac Mini/iPod" sig, they're spam!
Maybe I'm dumb, but I don't understand. Voice-over-IP is just UDP packets (or whatever) with specialized contents. The people who provide it are the people who provide your internet. Interconnection is guaranteed in the same way that you can get to the same web sites no matter who your ISP is.
You're forcing the existing idea of a telephone network onto an IP-based situation. Don't. Throw it all away and build it up again from scratch. Phone numbers are an ancient holdover from the days of vacuum tubes or before, we can do so much better now.
Specific points answered:
1) Prices on internet service are extraordinarily low. Why would VoIP be different? It's just internet.
2) Any company that refuses to interconnect with the rest of the internet instantly commits suicide. AOL was one of the last bastions of this, and they broke down eventually. Now you get a full IP connection to the 'net by default when dialing into AOL. As I've said before, VoIP is just internet.
3) No phone numbers. Think more along the lines of e-mail addresses.
4) See above comments on prices.
5) Regulations don't guarantee QOS, prices and competition do. It's just like the internet now. My cable modem is great, mostly because it's cheap. I can live with the strangely-varying latencies, dropped packets, what-have-you, for the price. I think it would work fine for phone calls. If I didn't like it, I'd find something that worked better. It might cost more. That's life. If phones are classed as essential, and any significant downtime causes people to become pissed off, any company that has these things happen often will lose its customer base awfully quickly. VoIP opens up more competition and makes it even easier to have multiple companies servicing the same area.
6) This is a problem. I have no answer here. But it's optional to own a phone. As long as people see very, very clearly that this new setup they're getting might have complications when trying to reach police, I don't see it as a problem.
7) Oh yes, we certainly need the government to have a guaranteed ability to wire-tap and trace calls. While we're at it, let's pass some laws allowing them to read my e-mail. They certainly should have a key to my apartment on file in case they need to search it. If the police see me on the street and suspect me, we'd better make sure they can search me even without my permission. If they decide to arrest me, better make sure they can interrogate me effectively. If I don't answer, I'm hiding something, so better have some punishments for that. Having a lawyer there will encourage me to lie or hold back, so keep him away. DNA and blood samples will be useful in matching to the crime scene, so make sure they can get those, even if I don't agree. The police know what's going on, and the judge will be able to get the info from them, so none of these know-nothing juries around declaring guilty people innocent.
Where was I? Oh yeah. The rest of your points are good if IMO misguided. That last one is just, no offense, a dumbass point. I need guarantees of wiretapping and call tracing like I need to be interrogated via baseball bat or thrown out of a fiftieth-floor window.
Mod down posts with a "Free Mac Mini/iPod" sig, they're spam!
Should be interesting to see how long we can make this thread last....
1) With VoIP there should be no difference between local and long-distance, just like there's no difference between e-mailing Bob across the street and e-mailing Bob in Australia. The thing to own will not be the infrastructure but the software, and any company whose software doesn't interoperate will lose customers rapidly.
2) Comparison to the instant-messaging systems is very interesting, since it shares many of the same problems. People don't seem to have much problems working with the multiple IM systems out there, whether with clients that can connect to more than one system or simply by running more than one client at once.
3) Directory services would be similar to e-mail directory services today. They fairly suck, but I generally don't have trouble looking up people's e-mail addresses. If the system is like the IM systems, with a central server refereeing hookups, then the central server can handle searches among its client base. Search several services at once if you don't know which one the person you're looking for is on.
4) Do companies have to give up their domain names if they switch ISPs? Of course not. Any IP phone connections could be tied to the domain name. Instead of calling 1-800-555-3456, you call frontoffice@somecompany.com.
5) No, of course my cable modem isn't up all the time. As I said, I don't need it to be. If I did need it to be, I'll pay more money for something that works better. Different people have different needs, and if I can avoid subsidizing people who truly need 24x7 through power outages and whatever else, then great.
6) I think I understand your point of view here. I'm not really sure what I think. On the one hand, you make a lot of sense. On the other hand, there are two situations to consider. Situation A: no phone. Situation B: phone, but no 911. In both cases, emergency services cannot be called. Maybe it would become a point of competition, and companies that didn't offer it wouldn't get very far. Any company that didn't have 911 services and didn't make that very, very clear to its employees is opening the way for lawsuits just like a company that welds shut the fire escapes.
7) What about tracing obscene/harassing calls? I don't care how important it is to the investigative process. If beating me on the head with a sledgehammer were an important part of the investigative process, would it be necessary to guarantee that ability? Just because something is necessary to the investigation of a crime does not justify that something. Any amount of you thinking that it should be allowed won't make it true. Of course, your side will win....
Mod down posts with a "Free Mac Mini/iPod" sig, they're spam!
On a more serious note, VoIP needs some regulation...
Ok, dumb question here, but.... why?
Mod down posts with a "Free Mac Mini/iPod" sig, they're spam!
Yeah, ok, it's proprietary. So what? Do we really need government to step in and dictate that they must agree on a common protocol? Of course not! It will happen in time no matter what. Just like with ISPs who limited users to their own content, any major product that does not interoperate will change or die as VoIP becomes more popular.
Mod down posts with a "Free Mac Mini/iPod" sig, they're spam!
From what I understand, VOIP works by using a standard UDP connection, and simply sends packets representing voice information. How can this be detected as being VOIP, rather than any other UDP-using application?
Any enforcement mechanism is going to go after large scale providers, which essentially will mean standards-based VoIP, which means that a quickie protocol decode will be able to spot telecomms traffic based on the payload.
You and your buddy using some homebrew system may easily evade this, but two guys talking peer to peer isn't a telecommunications system any more than two kids talking over tin cans and a string is and the FCC ain't interested in regulating you and your pal, string or tin cans.
First of all, IP telephony is useless without the ability to get at the voice network. If you and everyone else you know and possibly want to call are using the same VoIP scheme, you're fine avoiding the telcos. Until that time VoIP really needs gateways to the established voice network -- somebody has to be able to hook my VoIP-originated call to a voice network in addition to letting someone on the analog network call my VoIP phone.
Traditionally the phone companies have made loads of money doing this very thing -- letting MCI customers call Pacbell customers and so on. The FCC has long regulated this practice among people that call themselves "phone companies", but doesn't have the ability (yet) to regulate people who call themselves "internet providers".
The telcos are likely scared that not only will they be competing with a network far more modern than theirs, they're competing with someone who isn't burdended by regulation. It's kind of a legitimate concern.
-Lunatic
Phillippines Telecom (or whatever their name is - PLDT?) likes being a dinosaur. They have enough of a stranglehold on the government, that they can stay antiquated and still make money. No doubt they had something to do with initiating this legislation. They can sit back and do nothing and still earn money.
Photos of bits of the past hiding in the present: afiler.com
If video was regulated by "the radio star" we not only wouldn't have HDTV.. we wouldn't have color TV and I dare say instead of NTSC, PAL and the other video standards that came out we'd be using the video technology I saw in a TV documentry on.. TV... where the picture only displayed a sillowet.
It would.. in the long run.. be restricted to a glorifyed radio and not giving TV much advantage over radio.
I picture the same with Voice over IP...
Voice over IP can allready provide communications in the syle of phone (call a person), CB (open mike and talk to "the world") and you have voice over IP as part of some multiplayer games.
This isn't just telephony anymore...
Geeks In Space is a recorded MP3 file... voice over IP.. done vea a music file format...
RealPlayer talk shows also exist..
Ohh and let's not forget ftp://ftp.ibiblio.org/pub/talk-radio/ Internet Talk Radio...
The pionear in Internet talk radio.... predating MP3 and RealMedia and.. yes... using Sun Audio as it's primary format it seems this netcast happend during a time when the Internet saw Windows as "Those Dos machines" in much the same way we'd look at a PS2 today.. Neat toy for OTHER PEOPLE...
This dose seem to be the wolf guarding the sheap.
Eventually voice over IP will overtake the phone network.
I myself am using a radio modem... considerably cheapper than a cell phone....
I don't actually exist.
This is an insightful comment...
However the DOJ isn't seeking to regulate Microsoft but to break it up after the fact.
AT&T and Union Steel were delt with the same hand..
IBM and Microsoft both got a kinder fate. IBM backed down and let others take over. Microsoft however did not learn from it's first run in with the DOJ.
In StarTrek terms.. Microsoft is the Borg.. the DoJ is Q.
I'd much rather not rely on Q to dismantal the Borg.. but having taken the task I'm not going to object...
It was up to Microsoft to defend itself. If Microsoft had argued that this is a dangerous road they might have gotten some support for Slashdot... It is a dangerous road.
Maybe that is what Microsoft ment by protecting innovation. However.. Microsoft itself placed itself as the example for innovation... This akin to a murderer placing himself as an example of humanitarianism. It dosn't fly.
But if Microsoft in making itself the example was trying to say this rulling could sereously injure innovative companys.. I'd agree..
The DoJ botched the job the first time and now it's the for the free market to take over.
Accually I contend had the DoJ left well enough alone Microsoft may not be the monopoly it is today. That consent decree did more harm that good.
From that point forward Windows and Dos were a single product.. the whole point of the consent decree with to prevent that from ever happening...
If Microsoft finds some way to survive a splitup and remain a monopolist power... The DoJ should LAY OFF and LET THE MARKET DO THE WORK.
The DoJ attacked when Microsoft was at it's weakest. When the market itself was allready prying Microsoft appart.
The DoJ created sympathy. Created political allies. The mayter...
In the mean time the DoJ (the Q) eye other busnesses that may need breaking up... hu ho....
I don't actually exist.
Just like going after P2P, this is a useless peice of legislation. There would be no effective way to enforce this law if it ever came under the slightest bit of organized attack. Has anyone ever effectively illegalized internet content?
--
There are no trails. There are no trees out here.
VoIP is a fantastic technology, and it's great to work with. within an office setting, or enterprise-wide, it's a great solution. However, it's not really suited for someone's dorm room, or for your home computer, etc. It helps to have fibre only a hop or two up your private network, or to have something like a cable network (ala MediaOne, RoadRunner, AT&T etc.) You really just have to have that low latency.
my 2 cents. You guys have motivated me to look more closely at my cisco VoIP books today at work
EOM
I ca't believe what I am hearing? Why should the average user pay for something that the Telco companies invested in. If I invest in the market and lose, who should I blame? Should I not be able to ask for my money back as well??! Socialistic idiots....
-------- Of all the things I've lost, I miss my mind the most. --Ozzy
It should not be regulated. Or rather, it should depend on how the service is sold. Yeah. That's it.
There should definately be an unregulated class of service. I mean, it's simply using our networks to encode and send voice data.. very trivial. Who can regulate that? If they regulate 'VOIP' as a standard, we'll just use something else.
The telcos are selling these VOIP companies bandwidth. What's their problem? They are only USING THAT BANDWIDTH.
So they *are* paying for it.
Disclaimer: IANAL, but I supervised a Master's student [1] who researched the relation between VoIP and laws and regulations in Europe, especially The Netherlands.
There is a lot of regulation on voice telephony, but the question is whether voice over IP (VoIP) is to be regarded as voice telephony. The European Commission has stated [2] that voice-over-internet should be regulated as voice telephony if
(1) The communication is offered on a commercial base
(2) The communication is offered as a service to the public (e.g., not only internally in a company)
(3) The voice communication should be made between termination points of the switched public telephony network
(4) Use of direct transport, and delivery of speech in real time
(5) VoIP is offered as the main component of a service. This means that an ISP that offers VoIP "en passant" with Internet access, without extra charge, is not regulated as an voice telephony provider.
(6) There has to be some kind of "any-to-any" communication
(7) The VoIP service provider should guarantee that the voice quality is the same as the quality of the PSTN (public switched telephony network.
All of this means, that there is at the moment not a ground to regulate VoIP.
But also think what regulation of VoIP under the voice telephony regime would mean. The following list was made especially for The Netherlands, but most rules follow directly from EU guidelines, and should be applicable in all of the EU:
(1) VoIP operators should register with the local telecommunications regulator (UK: OFTEL, NL: OPTA,etc.)
(2) Numbering schemes: telephony numbers are usually organised according to a numbering scheme. Regulation of VoIP should result in incorporation of VoIP numbers, screen names or other handles in these schemes.
(3) Number portability: A consumer should be able to retain his telephony number/screen name/handle when moving from one VoIP operator to the other
(4) VoIP operators should interconnect with each other: this means that a consumer should be able to make a call to a friend who uses the VoIP service of another VoIP provider, and also to another friend that uses PSTN ("normal" telephony)
(5) The European emergy number "112" should be available at no costs to all VoIP consumers
(6) VoIP operators should cooperate with tapping voice communications
There are of course more details, but these are the most important results.
Jan-Pascal
[1] His report is public, if you need it I will ask him to e-mail it to you.
[2] Commission Notice concerning the status of voice on the Internet pursuant to Directive 90/338/EEC, OJ 6, January 10, 1998
--
Jan-Pascal van Best
Delft University of Technology
The Netherlands
http://www.ict.tbm.tudelft.nl
ooo - you just made me think of something better -- VBR instead of a constant wasteful 128kbps.
Even transmitting 64kbps (we do only need mono, right?) and using some form of "high-quality" VBR solution, we could probably save a lot more bandwidth and still have the conversations come out crystal clear. I don't think it "should" carry things like music etc as well as voice, because in that type of communications, all we're worried about is voice...
hmmmm..
Karnal
Shoutcast servers -- are they illegal in the Phillipines?
Nope.
You pay for a phone line, and your ISP pays for their phone lines. The telco gets paid for their job of local data transfer. The ISP buys their backbone from someone else.
I don't see how the telco pays anyone in this, but they do get paid by the people on both ends of the telephone call.
The only way the telco pays someone to carry the data farther is with long distance. If they don't carry it long distance, then they don't have to pay anyone else.
Anyways, as everyone else said, if the telco contracts to provide flat-rate local service, then they should provide flat-rate local service, it's a contract they entered into fairly.
If they can't handle it, well tough, maybe they go out of business. Someone will jump in and offer bandwidth (for voice or data) at a price that they can sustain. This is the case where a free market economy works.
it's government and business's are totaly corrupt
I've lived there almost 9 years I know
this is the Philippine telco's trying to prevent the loss of
long distence revenue
http://Lenny.com
1. I have more computing horsepower in my house than in the NTC main office (the NTC is the Philippine version of the FCC). 2. This is the Philippines. We couldn't even prosecute the creator of that stupid Outlook bug (Iloveyou). 3. We elected a clown for a president. And we can't even kick him out. How the hell are they going to enforce this?
International calls to the US going rate now is from US $0.40 to $1/minute.
What the developments now are referring to is not Voice over IP over the computer, which cannot be regulated at all. Instead, what is referred to is ISP's connecting to the phone network/PSTN, and allowing customers to [b]use the phone[/b] to call up the ISP and then be transport the call to the VoIP gateway and to the destination of the call.
Therefore, what the telcos want blocked is International Simple Resale (ISR) over IP. This is much more attractive because Internet penetration in this country is less than 1% of the population. With the creative use of Voice over IP the rest of the country could benefit by using the Internet over a voice phone to carry calls.
However, given the quality of Internet here (congestion and all), voice over the public Internet wouldn't be all that great.
www.pldt.com
... this is:
www.pldt.com.PH
Ranked among Google's top Satire sites...
I just did a search for HR 3234 at thomas.loc.gov. It came up with a bill "To exempt certain reports from automatic elimination and sunset pursuant to the Federal Reports and Elimination and Sunset Act of 1995."
The word "speech" appeared nowhere in any of the 3 versions.
I did a search for the phrase "human speech;" it doesn't appear in any bill in the 106th Congress.
Do you have a reference?
Regardless of the fact that the media (audio) associated with VoIP (i.e. RTP traffic) is sent end-to-end and is essentially just UDP, the signaling of any of the major VoIP systems (H.323 or SIP) isn't worth much without a service provider. Some entity needs to keep track of a user's presence (just like in IM systems), and needs to be reliable, scalable, etc in ways that an end user's terminal cannot be. There will -always- be a service provider for telecommunications systems - someone has to manage directories, user registrations, and so forth if the system will be anywhere near as good as today's telephone network. And yes, governments will regulate these providers and tax them, whether they are nominally Telcos or ISPs.
Umm ... clients pay for local call to ISP, same as any other local call. ISP pays for bandwidth from phone company or other owner of infrastructure. In turn, this provider often pays a chain of upstream providers that are generally phone companies or similar.
Nice, except my ISP isn't a dial-up, and they don't get their bandwidth from a telco. It's not just telcos handling the cables anymore.
Someday, you're going to die. Get over it.
Damn! Here I am, paying my company's T-1 bill and my DSL bill every month like a schmuck! Imagine my embarassment at learning there's a way to use the "communications infrastructure" without paying or helping to pay for it.
If you could post the details please, I'd appreciate it. It seems patently unfair that these voice over IP commies are getting their connection to the Internet for free while I have spent thousands of dollars maintaining a wired connection to a traditional telco service.
Without access to the free communications infrastructure you imply, my company just won't able to compete, which seems patently unfair.
Wouldn't that be a bit like the Postal Service regulating email?
But, Telco's in the states already *tried* this tactic. They attempted to get the FCC to cover ISP's as 'common carrier', simply because, they saw the writing on the wall. They failed miserably. As well they should have. Such a course of action would have instilled stiff tarrif's and other growth slowing penalties on the then growing net. The Death Star (AT&T) headed up the whole thing.
The FCC refused. And, I dont see it happening here any time soon. Simply put, the telco's are also the ones who are bringing us DSL, and other service, and, having been told already they arent getting their way with VoIP, I am sure they are looking at other avenues of control. If anything, they may have better stakes in being the only onramp. A good example of this is: my local ISP used to do all of the setup for a DSL, and now, the phone company makes you order the line seprately, and then choose your provider.
My $0.02
Supernaut
The issue here is that they are trying to get a profit off of someone ELSES efforts.
If i go to the trouble of setting up a voice over IP server, what right does the telephone company have to say that someone in a certain country has to pay THEM to use it?
--buddy
In the old days, the organisation that ran the mail (usually government-owned) also distributed telegrams. (After G. Marconi pulled his engineering/marketing magic, this went international). Then these scary 'telephone' devices became available.
There is an apocryphal tale (references, anybody?) of a mayor of an American town saying 'The telephone is a wonderful invention. One day, every town in America will have one.'
However, the postal companies were the ones who delivered the telephony. To this day, the 'big' telecoms provider in any region is referred to as 'The PTT' (Post, Telegraph and Telephony). British Telecom, Deutsche Telekom, France Telecom are the obvious examples.
Unfortunately, these dinosaurs have failed to wake up. Small, agile little companies are desperately trying to eat their lunch.
Even more unfortunately, the PTTs are desperately clinging to their last monopoly - the local loop. The PTTs own the copper from the local exchange to the customer's wall socket, and they will do *anything* to cling to that.
Cable providers are working hard to get more delivery to the customer premises, and deliver bandwidth to the home that is scary ( I have seen cable modems achieving 10Mb), but that is irrelevant.
Here is my point: The PTTs are used to charging by the second, at 64Kb. That business model is dying. The smaller service providers know this. They are hanging in there until the dinosaurs die. Trust me, the dinosaurs *will* die.
Modern customers are happy to pay for bandwidth. Burst bandwidth, commited bandwidth, quality of service. These are the things a customer will pay for. Charge by the minute, charge by the megabyte and you are dead.
Message to the PTTs: Wake Up and Sell the Bandwidth. There are plenty of hungry people out here who are waiting to eat your lunch.
Or, put simply (and on-topic again) charging extra for VoIP is the death-rattle of a PTT. We shall feast on it's rotting flesh.
Another question is whether it is even possible to regulate sufficiently advanced VOIP. From what I understand, VOIP works by using a standard UDP connection, and simply sends packets representing voice information. How can this be detected as being VOIP, rather than any other UDP-using application? Even if the contents can be uniquely identified as containing sound data, how can we know this isn't some internet equivalent of a radio station? And lastly, what if we slap a thin layer of encryption over the packets (currently, the computational cost of encryption/decryption makes this unlikely, but that will soon change) so that they're not recognizable? Given this, peer-to-peer VOIP is indiscernable from acceptable, unregulated traffic.
I've had this sig for three days.
...screw 'em both ways?
IE - VOIP for both local and long-distance calls?
Heck, get rid of the "middle-man" so to speak (although I guess there will always be a middle-man, until we build our own wireless optical link network) - use a broadband service and "dial" the IP address of your neighbor - so to speak.
Corporations (not just telcos, but broadband providers, media corps - especially them - and others) are SCARED of this tech falling into the "masses" hands. They would be just as scared of email and such if everybody understood it, but they don't. Why? Because it makes it harder for them to segregate us from one another - from forming communities.
Community is a threat to the corps - they will do anything to stop it.
Worldcom - Generation Duh!
Reason is the Path to God - Anon
Unregulated territory is not always the best. Most countries regulate Telcos to _prevent_ them from lowering prices. That way an incumbent is not able to sell services at a loss in order to kill off a competitor. It may result in higher prices in the short term as the competitor is established, but once they are established your cool. For an example of what happens in a (relatively) unregulated market, look at what Air Canada did to Canadian. After Canadian was dead, prices instantly went up by a considerable amount.
Jason PollockIn order for VoIP to be useful, it needs to interconnect with both the existing phone network, and be able to find other people. To do this, you need gatekeepers. It is reasonable to expect ISPs to put gatekeepers into the network, and then require all H.323/SIP traffic to traverse them. I know that my ISP already does this for HTTP/FTP/etc. H.323 and SIP both talk on standard ports, and need to perform codec negotiation, also on standard ports.
You need to talk to someone who isn't logged in? To do that you need to go through a gateway, which again can be logged, tracked and billed.
As for performance... The company I'm working for has a VoIP "switch" that is able to track and bill (in real-time, not post-processing) 500+ calls/second/system. For post-processing, you can crank that up to 1500 calls/second/system. H.323 is not slow if you do it properly. Open H.323, while nicely architected and OO, is incredibly slow. The current limitation on H.323? The fact that each call needs 2-4 control sockets, and 2 UDP sockets.
As a comparison, Mobistar, a cell-phone operator in Belgium, generates <45 calls/second (regular phone traffic).
So, it is both possible, and probable to bill for VoIP traffic. In fact, I hope to get rich doing it. :)
Jason PollockAs you can see, there are many regulations out there that people _need_. Some are for safety, some are to level the playing field. But, all are needed.
VoIP carriers in the US are not exempt from tariffs, and they will charge that back. Note that this won't tariff all VoIP calls, but then is VoIP usefull if you can't call for a pizza or the ambulance with it? In order for it to be usefull, it has to interconnect with the regular old PSTN, so it can be billed appropriately at that point.
Jason PollockAn American "unlimited" plan is actually a rate-averaged plan, wherein the price is supposed to cover the average local usage. Toll calls have always been charged for at a higher rate, again well above cost, in order to subsidize basic local service (the base monthly residential rate rarely covers cost; they make up for it via tolls, optional features, and much higher business-line local charges). That's done to promote "universal service".
If people use dial-up voice calls to access somebody who carries calls a long distance, then they're making long distance calls. It shouldn't matter whether the LD haul is coming via PCM fiber optic circuits, ancient analog microwave, the Internet, or modulated smoke signals. That's the LD carrier's business. Letting LD carriers use "the Internet" (which is NOT a clearly-defined term, and can be easily stretched to refer to semi-dedicated voice circuits) to carry voice, without paying the same as other LD carriers, is simply a way of subsidizing bad-quality carriers at the expense of good ones.
Note that if dial-up ISP calls become identified with LD, then it will be all the easier for the telco to demand toll charges for them. That's incredibly counterproductive.
In a country like the Phillipines, they haven't gotten as far as the USA has (not all that far!) in demonopolizing the phone business. So there is a real sensitivity to VoIP, which costs the local telco (PLDT) a lot of its international settlement revenue. And that will make it harder to provide basic service in what's basically a fairly low-income country, where most people can't even afford a phone.
Monopolies are generally bad and the old telcos made their own beds, but short-term disruption can hurt lots of people, even ISPs and their customers. In the long run this all shouldn't matter, but you have to be very sensitive to the economic interactions when an old monopoly faces competition in unexpected ways.
no.. the phone companies have no control over what I do on the internet. Voice over IP is just like transmitting a file and they have no say over that. I don't care if its using their phone lines or not. I pay for the call; end of story.
Keep in mind, that most telcos have had government-granted monopolies for decades, and in the case of AT&T, over a century.
The regulations exist to hamper competition, and if the telcos want to bitch and moan about how VOIP routes around the regs that their lobbyists bought and paid for, I say to hell with them.
Telcos are no more entitled to get in the way of VOIP than the USPS should interfere with my fax machine.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
No, they are losing out fairly. They will soon offer a service that has less value to me than I am paying for it, and they will no longer get my money.
I already pay for my phone access to my ISP. And I already pay for my ISP for my access to the internet. Fact is, as soon as it seems to be reasonably priced, I'll ditch my phone company for an all in one phone/internet access provider (I don't watch television, so I don't care about cable access).
The telcos are the buggy whip manufacturers of the 21st century. This is cruel and efficient capitalism at work. I wouldn't want it any other way.
The only purpose of legislation such as this (welfare given to industries that are becoming obsolete) is to maintain the status quo in the face of change mandated by technological advance.
It is wrong to maintain the status quo for the sake of industry. Industries should adapt or be dead.
-- Mojo Tooth : exploring our world as only an idiot can.
This got me thinking... currently you pay for your phoneline, and some form of internet access. As the latter becomes more common place it may seem more natural to merge to two (and as has been pointed out elsewhere the telcos who provide the former are often envolved with the latter).
So, say you roll everything into the internet - what happens to people who only have modems whilst others are enjoying decent broad band access? Well, how about you have two "forms" of access. One could be some kind of line for specific tasks (here I'm thinking voice calls, possibly videoconferencing style things too - it could extend to streamed video and other things I can't think of at 3:40am). The other line you'd use for reading SlashDot, playing Quake3, downloading , and everything else - like you do with which form of internet access you currently have.
Don't know if I've explained that well, and I've certainly not thought about it much, but thought I'd toss it up in the air. Would need to be carefully worked out, but something like this would bring specific services (the ones I've mentioned above) to all home owners in a nice easy package without the need (necessarily) for a computer, and would allow ISPs/telcos to route/limit things like VoIP. Of course your "normal" internet access should be able to do those things too (righty so, the internet being open 'n' all), but this extra service could provide a fixed quality for a lower price (maybe - would need a lot of thinking through to see if it was feasible).
--
There is a difference between capitalism and corporatism. When you have the government regulating the economy for the benefit of 1 or more established companies that's not the free market and its not capitalism. It's a limited, blood free form of fascism, sort of like Sweden is a limited, blood free form of communism. In all cases, it's still wrong, it just hasn't gotten to the gulag stage.
DB
As other's have pointed out, bandwidth is being charged for. What the telco's are complaining about is that the bandwidth necessary for voice used to be a big (relatively) fat pipe and VoIP transmits the same information over a trivially thin amount of bandwidth, thus blowing the telco business plans to hell.
Essentially, the telcos are complaining that people are using a compression scheme to not pay 'enough'.
If you go along with that, all modern modem useage needs to be regulated since it too uses compression.
The horror.
DB
--
The shareholder is always right.
In many respects it is the best VOIP package available, because source code is available (public domain, which doesn't fit the stricter definition of an open source license), it allows a choice of both transmission protocols and compression algorithms, so you can adjust each for your particular setup to get the best results, and it offers strong encryption (a non-encrypting download is available for places where that's illegal).
The main disadvantage is that because of all the options it is rather difficult to use. And because of some architectural features of Linux, it's hard to get working at all under Linux (but it can be done).
Usually what you need to do is learn how to use it, then get someone on the other end at a computer where they have both the telephone and internet available at the same time, and talk them through it. But I have worked with Speak Freely with novice users after giving them a little while of instruction.
It also has ICQ integration and if you have a full-time net connection you can use it in answering machine mode.
Michael D. Crawford
GoingWare Inc
-- Could you use my software consulting serv
The bandwidth required for a voice quality phone call that has been compressed by a modern voice compression algorithm (such as one of those available in Speak Freely) will be much less than someone using Napster, Gnutella or browsing an, uh, "image archive".
A good voice over IP product will work fine over a 28.8 modem. I know this because this is how I used to talk to my brother in law from California to Newfoundland.
You do occasionally suffer some dropouts or delays, but it's pretty tolerable, especially if you have a higher bandwidth connection, like at least dual-channel ISDN or 128 DSL. But still that's pretty modest as net connections go these days.
Probably your biggest concern is to make sure your ISP's connection to the internet is fat enough to support all their customers. Once it gets on the backbone its insignificant.
What I would like to see is voice over IP where the compression algorithm was streaming MP3, and we could have high-fidelity audio speech conversations at 16 bits and 44 khz. There's no reason we should have to deal with crappy 8-bit voice with 3 khz bandwidth in this day and age. But even this wouldn't require a terrible lot of bandwidth.
Michael D. Crawford
GoingWare Inc
-- Could you use my software consulting serv
You'll find some discussion about interoperability here.
Also see Speak Freely's development plans.
Michael D. Crawford
GoingWare Inc
-- Could you use my software consulting serv
While the strictly correct file format would require 1-second blocks (I wasn't aware of that, thanks), the basic principles of psychoacoustic audio compression should still work fine if the blocks are made shorter. Perhaps it might not be as efficient.
I sent email a couple of hours ago to the Ogg Vorbis folks about this, suggesting they look into it. I'm curious what they say; I'd be astounded if no one has considered it before.
Ogg Vorbis is a patent-free open specification and open source audio compression format meant to replace MP3.
Michael D. Crawford
GoingWare Inc
-- Could you use my software consulting serv
And I recall that he placed this call from inside of India, I think to the U.S. (although I'm less sure of the destination).
This works because you can configure Speak Freely's UDP port, so it gets through VoIP-blocking firewall software.
Michael D. Crawford
GoingWare Inc
-- Could you use my software consulting serv
What you get is transmitted as 8 bits, although since it's mu-law encoded it's approximately as good as 13 bits. But it has only three kilohertz bandwidth.
The audio quality of the modern telephone was decided decades ago as basically what was required to make speech easily intelligible, but not what would make it enjoyable.
It is not really within the telco's power to change that because all of the equipment from one end to the other, as well as all of the communications protocols and software are pretty hardwired for that limitation.
Many VOIP products observe this limitation and in fact are often not as clear sounding as a real phone, either because they need to work over a 28.8 modem, or because you're using a commercial carrier (even though it's over the internet) who doesn't want to pay a lot for a lot of bandwidth for high-quality calls.
This was my experience when I got an "Internet Calling Card" which worked just like a regular calling card, but the voice was streamed over the net in the middle. The audio quality was terrible, much worse than a telephone, and my then-girlfriend (now my wife) asked me to stop using it as it disrupted the closeness of our conversations.
I was investigating all the options a couple years ago, as I was in California and the woman who is now my wife was in Nova Scotia. I eventually settled on AT&T One Rate International because her 486 wasn't powerful enough to run VOIP.
But these days we have powerful processors and fast net connections. I believe that it is within our grasp to have two-way voice conversations with 128 kbps streaming MP3 with real-time compression.
Just voice over IP isn't going to win that many people over if all they're saving is some money, because most people don't make that many phone calls that the expense is worth the extra trouble. But imagine if they could get CD quality sound during their conversations!
And there would be nothing the telcos could do about it because they would be hamstrung by their legacy technology.
Probably it would be better to implement this using Ogg Vorbis so there would be no patent issues.
And I'd like to suggest that it be built with the ZooLib cross-platform application framework so clients could be built for Mac OS, Windows, Linux and other Unix variants and BeOS from the same codebase - note ZooLib includes networking.
Ah, but not UDP networking. Not yet...
Michael D. Crawford
GoingWare Inc
-- Could you use my software consulting serv
At my last job one of our big clients was a Competitive Local Exchange Carrier (CLEC) that provided telephone and internet service to office buildings in a package deal. We built a system to generate phone bills of their switches. After that was done they wanted to meter internet usage. We figured this was the traditional dollars/byte type of thing that some high bandwith customers get. Then we found out they wanted to have the price for meg be different depending on weather the content was Data, Voice, or Video! Now, ignoring for the moment the fact that their cost to provide a T1 is fixed regardless of weather data or video goes over it... What we basically discovered after brining several experts in on it was that there just wasn't any reliable way to decide what category a packet fell into. Several commercial solutions were demoed to us but we were always able to bypass the video/voice metering rate and pump video through at the data rate. I'd say the same applies here. On an aggregation device of any meaningful size, it is simply not practical to examine every single packet for say, H.323. And that's just one encoding!
and next they'll be regulating web cams. how silly can the ideas get?
i liked the internet more when it was kinda like the old west... lawless.
jinkusu
Kiss, if you do not connect using the telco's equipment, then they are not entitled to regulate the connectivity. Given that, it would be impossible for them to regulate it effectively given alternate connectivity methods. Therefore, it is wrong, unjust and unfair for the telcos to essentially regulate nothing more than a protocol that may or may not run on their equipment.
/. socialist ranting (I'm getting quite tired of it myself, watch me get moderated into oblivion now...); it is the expression of shock at having one type of business (ISPs) being treated unfairly simply because a keyboard is involved.
Furthermore, 900 number and other telephone sex services, telephone mail order companies, phone chat lines or other telephone based services (virtually anything you order over the telephone) do not have to share a portion of their profits with the telcos for using the telephone. They simply have to pay their phone bills. ISPs should, and are, no different. They are providing a service that may or may not make use of the telco's infrastructure just like the florist that takes orders from land lines and cell phones.
The attitude you are inferring from this story is not the usual
Cable modems, satellites (yeah, I know I spelled it wrong) and any new methods of connectivity not yet developed are not under the control of the telcos.
For those using voice over IP on telephone dial-ups, then perhaps the telco will have a legitimate claim. However, I do not make any use of the telco's infrastructure, and I would gladly take them to court for stealing fees from my ISP!
Just more people that don't understand making laws that they can't fully comprehend...
I would be shocked if this isn't driven by the telco's within the Philippines (unless the government makes money directly from telephone usage.) Speck
I've noticed people saying that the data is going over the telco's lines, thus causing them to 'lose out'. How so? You're still paying them your monthly fee to make local phone calls. Unless your telco is also your LD provider, they're not being robbed of any buisness. What they're really afraid of is people internet connections that don't rely on their lines, and using VoIP entirely, completely removing the telco from the loop. True, it's not happening tomorrow, but it is a possiblity, and quite possibly something we WILL see in the future - Why use two different networks for communcations when you can put everything on one (hold off on the comments about the net being clogged up already, this is a forward-looking statement).
So, I don't think the true issue here is fair usage of telco equipment - that's not what it's about at all. It's the telco being afraid of losing their monopoly on voice communications. They damn well should be afraid, but this is not how they should deal with it.
-palp
What's unfair? Unlimited means unlimited. If you go to a restaurant that advertises unlimited buffet dinner for a certain price, and you keep going back for seconds, and the manager finally kicks you out, do you defend the manager because they were "losing out unfairly"?
If I remember correctly, a precedent was set in the case Simpson vs. The Frying Dutchman. The court ruled in favour of the plaintiff. As part of the settlement, a Mr. H.J. Simpson was granted unlimited access to the premise's food, but was forced to act as an attraction and eat in front of a glass window. Grum
No.
It's time for the governments of the world to step aside, disband, and let the people of earth live free.
OK, I admit that I am not intimately familiar with this, but, as I understand it, MP3 compresses in blocks of one second each. This means that any voice communications done in MP3 would automatically have a latency of two seconds (round trip), which would be unacceptable. So, you'd want to use a compression format designed for real time communication. This, of course, means a trade off in bandwidth, quality, and/or required processing power. Anyway, just a small point there. (Anyone know more details?)
------
Most of the telecos are moving to being the all-in-one-ISP-bandwidth/services-provider. Pretty soon I think it'll just be a given that VoIP is just another ISP (as in Earthlink, MindSpring, AOL, your local ISP, etc) service and you might only see a slight fee hike to cover the additional bandwidth. The telecos will realize that the real money will be in being the guys that wire the net together, not in the individual, smaller services like VoIP, email, web access, etc.
If you are in the business of providing voice service, you are subject to a huge maze of rules, regulations, and taxes. People doing voice over IP are not forced to deal with this maze. It's unfair to the telcos.
Now, the solution the telcos are asking for is to force everyone else into the maze with them. This is entirely rational from their point of view. I, and other libertarians, would prefer a different approach: wipe out the maze and leave the telcos alone.
One poster suggested that a small farm town would be unable to get affordable phone service, but I find that very difficult to believe. Is that same small farm town unable to get affordable food? How about affordable computers? What is magic about telephone service that makes it impossible for a free market to deliver it cheaply?
Just maybe in the early days of telephony it was actually necessary that government set up monopoly telcos and regulate them, but it certainly isn't true now. If there is a problem with getting a phone, you can get a cell phone. If company A owns all the wires going into a town, company B can set up a microwave relay, route voice onto an Internet backbone, or maybe make a deal with the power company to put voice data on the power lines. (Don't laugh; I've heard that some places in Europe already do Internet service through power lines.)
If telcos have to pay the Al Gore tax, every voice user should have to pay it. But I say get rid of it instead of spreading it around even more.
steveha
lf(1): it's like ls(1) but sorts filenames by extension, tersely
What can the telcos do to possibly compete with VoIP? How about offering VoIP too and competing on equal terms with other VoIP providers. This means offering the same of better quality service at competitive prices.
"I'll have a witty
This is true, but until the networks are upgraded to IPv6 there isn't such a thing as high priority traffic.
As I recall from my years living in the Philippines, just after the Revolution that brought Cory Aquino to power she handed the Telephone company to her brother Peping to run as he liked. I don't know who runs it now, but you probably don't have to look any farther than one of Estrada's friends to find out what powers this. Tong. Fair? Gimme a break. It used to take up to three years to get a phone, and that was if you paid three or four thousand pesos lagay.
if X == "Microsoft" : then return 1 ; else return 0
True, that is what market is for when there are many small companies, and buyers can choose their sellers.
.mp3 format, ftp'ing it to the person whom you're talking to and playing it (besides the fact that you should, of course, do this all realtime :]). IMHO: nothing...
This however, is not the case with telco's, is not the case with big OS manufacturers and is not the case with CD records.
Monopoly/Oligopoly
This is where not the buyers make up the rules, but the sellers. Since the buyers are more or less binded to the big companies, they can't choose nor argue.
Of course, this is considered a bad thing. Numerous people have tried to abandon this capitalistic idea and some have succeeded. Regulations are just a part of (mono|oligo)polies.
I find this attempt of telcos trying to abandon VoIP a very humble and stupid one. There are no rights whatsoever on what you send through an UDP connection. What makes the difference between an irc session, and a VoIP connection? What makes the difference between recording your voice, putting it in the
Anyhows, browsers should have an option for vi keybindings in textboxes. But that's another point *grin*
This is a replacement signature.
People will find a way to work around it if they try to restrict VOIP. They will use email, irc, messaging, video over IP, etc. The list goes on and on. They will find a way to transfer voice over the internet in some other way.
You have to buy bandwidth from the phone company to use VoIP. They are just getting their money from a slightly different source. I suppose you think that we should go back to hourly rates for our internet connections too? If a less than ideal service like AOL can go from hourly to unlimited then so can the phone companies.
What do you think about cell phone plans that give you unlimited long distance,no roaming, no peak usage, etc.? Are these unfair too? You pay for your time and use it how it suits your needs. Need more time, pay more money. Need more bandwidth, pay more money which ends up in the phone company's pocket. Even if you connect by satellite, cable, etc., it will still need to connect to the rest of the internet by the phone company's network somewhere upstream.
Just because that's the way its been doesn't mean that's the way it needs to stay. We used to pay for metered internet but now ISP's are thriving in unlimited use. Phone companies just have to make a shift to keep going strong. It may unfair to the way they used to do it but they can change how they do it and still be very profitable.
Can someone send me the original source of this story? I tried the NTC site at http://www.ntc.gov.ph/ but it isn't in their press release area.
The author has no email link and the poster's site is broken as far as I can tell.
Does Speak Freely support SIP or H.323?
Point taken anyway. I shouldn't extrapolate experiences with Dutch fast food franchises into a world wide view.
Bert Driehuis -- All I asked was a friggin' rotatin' chair. Throw me a bone here, people.
You are right, of course, in saying that it's none of the providers business what you use the phone line for, and that they should change their pricing if they feel the costs they are incurring do not match the revenue they get from you.
This is precisely what the Dutch PTT did in the 1980's, when they realized they were building central office switches like there's no tomorrow for the sake of just a few users who spent all their days on BBS's. They scrapped the unlimited access. This was in the days when CO switches limited the number of open lines to seven per one hundred subscriber lines, so they had little option but to do *something*.
Of course, paid-for local access is an anachronism nowadays.
Another small observation about the way the decision was made then is that they made this change precisely to avoid having to raise monthly charges for the average user. Bad for nerds, good for grannies. Economy is about distribution of both wealth and costs, and politics is about what's the definition of "fair". It's funny to see the government owned juggernaut at the side of the consumer.
Sigh. These days, the Dutch government has all but took its hands off the telco's, which results in the weird situation that even though our montly charges are far less than in most other places in the world, it is now cheaper to call from my home to anywhere in the US than it is to call to Amsterdam, which is only 30 miles away, and that I *still* pay about US$.50 per hour for local Internet access.
Bert Driehuis -- All I asked was a friggin' rotatin' chair. Throw me a bone here, people.
Of course, this was in a friendly network setting, mostly TCP and no way for abusers to hide from the network managers.
And this was the easy case, prioritizing TCP. The problem with UDP is that it has no inherent flow control mechanism. Stuff like RealAudio has its own heuristics to avoid overloading a line, but as heuristics go, the time to respond to changing conditions is quite noticable, and because UDP doesn't back off by itself, in the mean time the link is loaded with packets that don't reach their final destination in the first place. On overloaded Frame Relay circuits, it is not unusual to see 50% of traffic consisting of TCP retransmits, and in those cases, tuning the rate down can actually improve performance. I don't want to know what happens to VoIP in those circumstances...
VoIP really hinges on the availability of fat pipes. They're cheap in the US and parts of Europe and Asia, but try getting a reliable circuit in South Africa...
Bert Driehuis -- All I asked was a friggin' rotatin' chair. Throw me a bone here, people.
Well, if the poster of this question is accurate in that, "They proposed that ISP's who engage in internet telephony will be required to pay the telco's access charges.", that's not the issue, at least not here in the states. You'd be charging for services that are not being provided.
Back when AT&T was broken up by the Feds, one issue was that other long distance providers weren't able to purchase the same quality of access that AT&T was using. These access connections provided answer supervision (detection of the voltage change when someone picked up their handset to answer an incoming call) among other things, and allowed for precise billing. Once divestiture was a reality, those same competing companies didn't want to pay additional fees on every one of their trunks to obtain the additional service. They tried timers (if it's still ringing after twenty seconds, we assume you got a connection and start billing) and noise detection (if you yelled, "Turn down that stinkin' radio, I'm trying to call your grandmother!" while it was still ringing, we figure you're talking to your party and start billing).
Since VOIP doesn't care when or if you get connected, and you can live with minor quality issues, and ISP's aren't demanding the high dollar hookups, you can't justify charging the access fees associated with service you're not providing.
--
As a matter of fact, I am a lawyer. But I play an actor on TV.
Of course Telco's have a right to charge for the use of their equipment! We are not living in a free for all Utopia, you know.
It's called a phone bill. Perhaps you recieve them?
There is absolutely no reason for regulators to get involved in this. Look, this is the market. If more people make phone calls over the Internet then that is where the resources are directed. Those who charge for Internet services benefit.
A lot of money is being made providing Internet services. The market is working. There is no need to artificially prop up one class of competitors over another class of competitors. When regulators try to pick winners and losers in the marketplace, consumers are always among the losers.
they should have NO right, the use of voice over the internet is started by other companies not the telco, so why should we have to pay the telephone company they arent doing anything new. If I have Cable television and I switch to DirecTV should i still have to pay the Cable company because I am no longer using them? of course not.
How are they connecting now to the internet? If the modem users are already using the telephone lines, isn't that already being taken care of by the TelCo? Why charge again when they're already paying once for the modem connection?
This problem is not specific to Philippines. In India, the government organization VSNL leases out bandwidth to private ISPs. According to their rules, the last time I checked voice over IP was not allowed. AFAIK all major private ISPs lease bandwidth from VSNL so effectively VoIP is banned in India.
Speak Freely is a marvelous program, I have used it to save literally hundreds of dollars on long distance! It has been around for a long time, but hardly anyone new to unix these days seems to have heard of or use it.
... comes with full integration of IDEA, DES, Blowfish cyphers, and can call pgp to exchange a key with someone else if they have pgp installed too.
It is a marvelously solid and robust package, supports 4 types of compression [even one which allows robust [4 duplicates of every packet] communication over a standard POTS 33.6 modem (albeit at less then ideal fidelity)], as well as GSM compression [at a mere 1.5KB/sec], which I find delivers notably better fidelity then your normal telephone link! [Maybe this is just a matter of the higher quality analog-to-digitial converters in modern sound cards plus better mics then normal phones]
It is available, under a BSD style license, for download at this site [full source]
Best of all [or pehaps not, depending on your degree of elitism] it is also available for windoze... which, although I hate to think of another example of the win32 world enjoying the fruits of hardcore unix ingenuity and altruism [they even slapped a bloody GUI on the thing for the win32 version...sigh...], nonetheless is cool because they interoperate.
This means that other less CSCI friends/aquantainences of mine can download it and talk to me for free. I doubt I could convince them that "well, you just need to install a copy of linux on your system to use this amazing product, come on, it's easy enough, I'll talk you through it!" heh [PS. not saying linux is hard to install at all, but it is for those people whose VCR's are still blinking 12:00]
An amazing program. Enjoy saving lots of money!
P.S. Did I mention that it also natively supports high-grade encryption for all conversations?
P.S. I am in no way affiliated with the fine group that has developed speakfreely. I just think that the program rocks.
---
man sig
---
the pen is mightier then the sword. the sword is mightier then the court. the court is mightier then the pen.
This is rated a +2? Nobody is trying to get anything for free here. The user is only making a local call to their ISP. The phone company desires long distance charges, despite the fact that they only carry the traffic a short distance. That just doesn't stand to reason. If that makes me a communist in your eyes, you may have something in them.
Linux: The ultimate Lego set.
You need higher priority packets for VOIP. Well, you don't NEED, but if you don't get, then your audio stream tends to break up.
Higher priority traffic has to be marked as such and jumps the queue over non high priority traffic. Your payment for your IP service will include a certain amount of high priority traffic. You'll pay more for more high priority traffic.
-WolfWithoutAClause
"Gravity is only a theory, not a fact!"I beg to differ. Only if there is a LOT more bandwidth than everyone needs will dropouts not be a problem. Basically if that's the case the telco will slow their deployment until there is JUST enough equipment for the demand. They have to do this to maximise the profit for their shareholders.
Don't forget there's a lot of pent up bandwidth demand out there- web is the least of it- video on demand...
As for 'no' tarrif. Wrong. You've just got a flat rate tarrif now; that's all.
-WolfWithoutAClause
"Gravity is only a theory, not a fact!"I don't want to pay anymore than the next guy.
One of the problems with VOIP is that it needs to be higher priority traffic than normal traffic- it pretty much needs guaranteed bandwidth. The problem is that we probably can't have ALL the bandwidth on the internet being high priority.
Therefore having a higher tarrif for higher priority traffic probably is the way to go.
(Some scheme like a free number of packets per month might work too...)
Still, even in the short run the amount of bandwidth we get on the internet is going to be pretty high. More than 24 hours 7 days a week free voice bandwidth isn't an unreasonable demand for us to make.
-WolfWithoutAClause
"Gravity is only a theory, not a fact!"If I can bypass the telco network completely, no regulation should take place.
Oh, and don't feel too bad for the telcos - wiring up the US wasn't exacltly a sacrifice play for them. They raked in billions upon billions in profits after all the infrastructure costs had been met. I'm sorry that copper's obsolete, but hey, thats business. We don't owe them anything.
Why? Because ultimately, providing bandwidth is a sucker's deal - look at the glut in dark fiber, look at the oncoming glut in submarine fiber.
The actual cost per bit is rapidly approaching zero - without a metering system, however artificial, none of these companies will be able to stay in business.
Excuse me, but outside of your world, a substantial part of the internet is not controlled nor provided by your CO (I can assure you that the connection I am writing from (Comcast@Home) doesn't use telco equipment.). Besides, ISPs should have the right to pass any IP traffic they want to over their pipes, as long as it doesn't involve DoSing or cracking remote hosts.
VoIP would also open up the market for voice service, breaking the stranglehold that most local telcos have on the pricing. Remember, competition is a Good Thing(TM).
Finally, if the telcos want to keep their voice business, they damn well better adapt to changing market conditions introduced by VoIP. It's not the role of the government to provide welfare for the telco industry through illogical regulations such as this, and I hope it doesn't turn out like this in the U.S.
Friends don't let friends use multiple inheritance.
Fairness is "universal service". Telcos charge extra to everyone to subsidize an essential service to the few way the hell out in the mountains, or the woods, or the desert.
:)
VoIP doesn't itself threaten that at all. Poor people can still have their telephones. "Snail phones"?
The problem arises when you need to have an expensive PC to do VoIP. If regular telephones went away today, poor people would be shafted. The fact is, though, that we're a long way away from anything close to that. Most of the IP telephony happening now hops out to the PSTN *somewhere* along the line.
What may change this is "net pipe wall socket" where you plug right into a TCP/IP network, and your phone has an embedded chip to do VoIP itself.
Then again, by the time that happens, poor people will be able to purchase/lease/borrow them from, at a minimum, the net pipe provider.
-Nev
All that equipment was put in place while telcos were crown corporations. It's the taxpayer's/citizen's equipment. duh.
We are not living in a free for all Utopia
Only because we choose not to. Keep moving towards Utopia, that's supposed to be the goal fo humanity...
From Mr. The_Blade's home page:
the technophilic community fascinates me, and is at odds with my slightly technophobic tendencies
May I suggest the postal service then?
2 1337 4 u!
Um. The fact of the matter is that building a CO for a community of 180 isn't economic, regardless. If it was a free market situation, the only way that those users in rural areas could be serviced would be by charging them astronomically high fees.
eventually some bright guy will realize that they can steal all the other people's customers if they stop.
If some guy steals rural customers by only charginf them $30, he'll go out of business in 6 months.
It's easy for people to go on about how the free market will make everything shiny and beautiful like a Roger's and Hammerstein show because the infrastructure has already been built. It's just not economical to service an entire community when you're working on the profit model.
2 1337 4 u!
rural charges of $120 a month for basic service
911 calls billed at $20
"This voice mail brought to you by Blockbuster, rent Die Hard 27 and get a free 500ml Pepsi..."
Like it or not, telephones are an essential service. The only way to ensure that they stay as such is via regulation.
In Alberta, our notoriously right wing government has initiated a program of mind-blowing foresight (foresight, btw, is a rare quality in the Klein regime) and will be subsidizing the installation of province-wide, rate-regulated broadband net access. They're taking the same model that gave us phone saturation and applying it to the internet.
2 1337 4 u!
Now I'm probably missing something, but how would regulators distinguish between voice over IP versus other network traffic?
Thank you. Thank you. Please no applause; just throw money
Comment removed based on user account deletion
The phone companies received major tax cuts and revenue from the federal government (in the US, at least) for the running of such telephone lines to not only major cities, but to rural areas, where the cost of running such lines far outweighed any amount they might pick up in the distant future.
Once a signal decides to go overseas, the majority of large fiber optic cables capable of carrying national sized traffic were run by the U.S. Navy, and, up to a few years ago, were only "leased" from the US government.
The telecommunications network is controlled by the federal government, in that it can be shut down at the drop of a hat due to national emergencies. The telephone companies also receive large subsidies for this.
All this comes to a certain, specific point. Since the US government hands out these subsidies, and lines to the companies, those lines are in the public trust. Taxes paid to support the running of the fiber optic cables, and subsidizing of telephone companies mean that any tax the phone company can think of, we have already paid.
krystal_blade
It will be easy to motivate our fellow man; there is hardly anything people treasure more than not being annihilated.
So are you saying this a good thing? You sound almost defeatist. Yes big corporations get away with a lot of things that they should not, and little corporations dream about having the power to do the same - does this mean we should give up and let them?
Should we not try to level the playing field - either through regulation or by creating oppurtunities for competition through other means (startup grants and the like for new companies)?
And no, the telcos could not charge the ISP even for the use of the phone network. If VOIP grew so big that it supercedes the phone network, what would they charge for? The telcos would be demoted to being merly the providers of physical interconnectivity between ISPs or between ISPs and end-users (let's not even go into the whole wireless issue)
This is what free enterprise is all about. Faced with the threat of the loss of telephone services the telcos of the world must either adapt or find a new line of business (which they will inevitably screw up like they have the analog phone system)
If they are smart, they will move onto become ISPs themselves, which is what many of them are doing, such as QWEST, AT&T, etc.
Hmm... All these people are sitting here speaking of the free ideal utopic society where no person (using the legal definition of corporations represented as individuals, which is a completely different rant) has undue benefit over another based on effervescent qualities such as wealth or connections to people in power.
Where do all of you live? Please tell me, I will come join you.
Seriously though, yes, ideally the phone companies can only charge for the ISP's use of the phone, and the ISP can not be charged extra because it too is a "person", but in the modern world a greedier form of capitalism supercedes laws and morality.
Ayn Rand is the real power behind the throne
(Score: 5 Insightful / Funny)
:), they'll use OCR to make books into computer-readable text, then use speech synthesis to make the human speech! IT'S FARENHEIT 451!!!
Somebody has to stop the voice-synthesis people and fast - the FCC's gonna take over SlashDot and everything typed - it will be able to be reconstructed to human speech!
Oh no! Even worse (with the exception of SlashDot
On a more serious note, VoIP needs some regulation, but paying the phone companies as was suggested in the Phillipines isn't right. If anyone one remembers the story on the Canadian FCC-equivalent making highspeed access a "staple", then you'll see an example of good regulation. It makes standards and promotes availability. This, however, it a bad example. It gives the phone company a free ride - double if you use ISDN/DSL/T1 from them.
Perhaps the phone company should make me pay them for lost revenues if I use cable 'net access instead of DSL. This is stupid...
Careful: I know how to MetaMod!
SIG: HUP
One main focus of Voice Regulations is "Call Intercept" a.k.a. phone-tapping.
Usually, a voice carrier gets his license on the condition that he will provide such a tapping functionality to the local authorities (cops/narcs/etc.)
In many countries, the same rules apply in theory to all data and hence internet communications, although this is rarely enforced (technology moving too fast for the lawmakers, and the carriers can use the lack of common standards as an excuse not to implement).
A big fear of regulators is that as more people get non-telephone access to the internet (DSL, Cable, Fiber to the desk, anyone?), and then use internet telephony, that they can bypass the tapping mechanisms.
On the other hand, there is a lot of political pressure on the regulators to keep their cotton-pickin fingers off the internet (y'all know the new economy is gonna save the planet... NOT!), and especially to refrain from unilaterally setting down rules, since this is places the country in a handicapped position vs. unregulated neighbours.
This battle is still ongoing.
The above applies to Internet-to-Internet telephony. VoIP can also be just a transport protocol like any other inside a telco-carrier's network, in which case he must provide Intercept function at the gateway to the PSTN (Public Switched Telephone Network).
Not confused enough? http://translate.google.com/translate?u=www.slashdot.jp&hl=en&ie=UTF8&sl=ja&tl=en
Without regulation, businesses always manage to stomp on the consumer -- but the laws going through congress are doing the consumer more harm than good. Voice over IP, even between private parties will fall under the same regulations a telephones, and then we see all sorts of problems with the government stepping in so we can't avoid paying AT&T or Sprint their nickel a minute.
I mean, the telco's are already being compensated for the use of their phone lines with us paying for monthly internet access!!! While the foreign countries might have plans that make people pay by the minute for phone calls, even for local calls, the people are still paying! Who cares if they make the call over the internet or if they make the call using a standard phone, the phone companies make money.
I'm more worried about a company getting control over something it has absolutely no right to control though, than cost. Why don't we just let phone companies patent speech? Then, they could just sue us if we spoke anywhere without paying royalties...
---
Rise, Sir electricmonk!
--Giving to trolls for the benefit of us all
For everyone in here who muttered some moral judgement on capitalism such as "Capitalism exploits the consumers" or "The Telco's are being greedy," remember that NO WHERE on earth is there a capitalist government. Even in the U.S. is statist, not capitalist. The Telco's can petition / throw money at the FCC to screw people by regulating this kind of thing. The government agencies in a statist / socialist government screw people, not legititmate businesses in a capitalist nation.
Ask your local Cisco OS expert ...
tangina kayong mga leche kayo sa PLDT mamatay na kayonhg lahat mga putang ina ninyong lahat mga gago tarantado abusado magnanakaw putang in a ninyo!!! ano suntukan tayo?!?!
There are a few things we need to do to stop this kind of garbage, petition your governments, try to get as many people to disobey the law as you can so the government has no choice but to do what is right.
Remeber, in the words of Thomas Jefferson "The government that rules best, rules least."
-- this
Yeah, except gnutella is working really hard at not collapsing under it's own weight. Gnutella was not a very well designed network, and it won't ever catch on because it's slow and difficult to use.
-- this
It's not "free"... The ISP has already paid to use some bandwidth, and they should be allowed to use it how they like. Simple.
Long distance VoIP does not concern local telcos, the IP fee covers the connection and use of the internet, this does not concern their infrastructure.
To cripple technology for profit is inefficient and doomed to failureWait just a sec. You contract with the telco for phone service for a unlimited use rate. It's a contract, with both sides agreeing.
Now that some users decide to take the telco's at their word and really use the lines in an unlimited manner, and the telco realizes, "Uh oh, when we said 'unlimited' we didn't really think they would actually use it that much" and decides to change their contracts, you defend them because they are "losing out unfairly"?
What's unfair? Unlimited means unlimited. If you go to a restaurant that advertises unlimited buffet dinner for a certain price, and you keep going back for seconds, and the manager finally kicks you out, do you defend the manager because they were "losing out unfairly"?
Sorry, they made a bet about consumer behavior and lost the bet. Nothing unfair about it, just short-sighted on the telco's part.
________________
________________
Private Essayist
This is similar to the way music industry cartels per$uade governments to tax blank CDs. It's what happens when new technology challenges an industry's way of doing things.
Hopefully, governments will avoid proposing such stupid and unenforceable edicts. Maybe when more people will just get broadband they will be able to avoid these parasitic telephone companies altogether.
And of course the joke is.... since most telephone companies are so lazy, the lame 56k connections they offer can barely support internet telephony anyway. Oh well...
"Any connection between your reality and mine is purely coincidental." -Slashdot
In an ideal capitalist world broadband internet connnections would equal lower phone rates and would have a deflationary effect on the economy. The past 50 years has seen stratuspheric rises in productivity that have been coupled with rising prices and stagnating wages. I hope that the phone companies are not able to put the broadband genie back in the bottle and that for just once everyone gets to enjoy the fruits of a powerful labor and money saving technology. It doesn't make me feel in the least bit bad that money grubbing corporations like Ameritech are going to turn a lower profit if I use the internet to make a phone call. Fuck them, and every other company that pockets all of the profit from more efficient processes and then raises prices to pad their pockets and suppress competing technologies. The RIAA comes to my mind when I think about my last sentence too, that's ok, I have plenty of vitriol for them as well. It's about time that some corporations shared in the short end of the capitalism stick.
I think most people here seem to be missing the real reasons that telecoms companies are keen to curb VOIP. It has nothing to do with interconnection, and while it does have everything to do with control and profit, you're getting the wrong end of the stick.
Almost all telecoms companies make profit exclusively on long distance communication. Local comms are expensive to maintain and low profit - in fact sometimes they are even free and therefore generate no revenue.
VOIP is an effective means of circumventing the long distance revenue stream - cut all long distance traffic down to data only by encapsulating voice and fax in IP, and you bring a telecomms company to its knees.
Now while I like the idea of telecomms companies in a compromising position, I have a serious problem with the idea of having my local phone call costs increased because the company cannot break even when its long distance lines aren't being used. Its either they (long distance) carry us, or we (local call to ISP) carry them. I prefer the formed. So do you.
As for the technical "it can/can't be done" argument - there is no way to prevent such technology (VOIP) from being used. By telecomms companies can limit it. The vast majority of 'people out there' are scared of words like "illegal", and a sufficient awareness campaign will have them cowering and running "VOIP insta-remove" programs on their computers without a second thought. The minority that 'abuse the system' and slip through the cracks aren't going to break the profit margins.
i-name =twylite [http://public.xdi.org/=twylite], see idcommons.net
The reason why the NTC proposed this legislation is because International Long Distance is being used to subsidize the deployment of local exchange services in rural, (unprofitable areas). The fee that goes to the telco is supposed to make up for that subsidy loss that VoIP will cause. Whether the fee proposed is fair or not is a completely different issue.
To all those that say that say we need to pay that much extra for VoIP: We're already paying for network bandwidth/traffic. VoIP is nothing more than network traffic. This is no different than any other type of traffic (UDP, FTP, HTTP, etc) So why should one pay more for something s/he's already paid for?
AC comments get piped to
Yes, I'm so sure the TELCOs are just letting them use their equipment, for free.
Yes, I'm so sure the TELCOs operate at a loss, and have been for years.
Yes, I'm so sure investors are just continually putting money in a non-profit business, just for the fun of it.
Wake up buddy, they're already getting paid for use of their equipment!
AC comments get piped to
Once Broadband is in place, it will be only a matter of time before the users outsmart the regulators. Take Gnteulla for example. No one can stop it because its point-to-point.
The Market. Is. Supposed. To. Reward. Cheapness. and. Innovation. This does not. Regulations like this hamper efficiency. [/Quoted] Yes. But. The. Telcoms. Market. Is. A. Natural. Monopoly. And efficient though a monopoly market is, western governments have decided (rightly or wrongly) that they are /bad/ and that they should be opened up. Of course, with an incumbent monopolistic company it's necessary to regulate, else that company will exert its influence and control of the infrastructure to block entry and remain in control of the market.
However, what we really need is regulators that actually have some form of legislative power...
This is not so much about telco's charging specifically for VoIP through an ISP. What this /is/ concerning, IMNSHO, is the plans for most of the major telcos to convert their entire networks to IP. So /all/ voice calls will be VoIP. The crunch is, whether to charge per second, or by data quantities.
Current thinking tends toward the latter - if telcos charge by the second, there's no incentive to offer broadband access, since you can make people wait longer for their downloads.
However, if you can charge them for all their data, then broadband becomes a cash cow, as the world and its dog logs on to Napster. (Or starts downloading pr0n movies in their entirety, or whatever)
That's where the money is, and where the telcos are putting theirs.
How do they plan to diferentiate between voice and data? I use stuff like roger wilco and battlefield communicator to talk to my friends who are outside the local telephone area. Point is that what real difference is there between a packet of data containing voice and say, chunks of a random bitmap? I don't think there's much. Let them try. All they could do is write their own client and charge for that. Of course no one is stupid enough to pay for that....
All a coder really wants, are fast cars, fast women and fast algorithms.
First, we see the telcos whine about not wanting to provide xDSL services because it will cut into their hefty T1 profits.
Now, we listen to them whine about losing profits to xDSL competitors providing their services.
You made a poor business decision. Now pay for it!
People often forget (that is, if they ever knew) their power. Take a monopoly, any monopoly. If the people don't like the way they practice business, the can boy-cott them, or something. A corrupt provider can easily be stopped by the people, or changed; however no one seems to realize it.
In a market such as the one we have today, people control the market, not the government (with few exceptions). We control the market, no one else. If we want something done (or undone), by all means: go for it. Stop relying on government to protect us; rely on ourselves. Ourselves are, after all, the only ones we can truely trust...it's not like we can read minds (yet).
As you see, unregulated by your definition is not unregulated. Nothing is unregulated in today's economy. The market is controlled by one singal entity: consumers.
Who ever said this was about fairness? Unregulated territory is always the best, especially when it undermines something traditional, such as a telco. Try to regulate VoIP is like trying to regulate the...wait, it is trying to regulate the internet. You can't regulate the internet. Ok, fine, let's have the telcos try to regulate VoIP just to have them waste money on something that's not going to happen. That will drive up the prices on "traditional" services, forcing everyone to switch to VoIP; essentially, the telcos would be puttying themselves out of business. Yes, let's regulate VoIP. Rather, let's let them regulate VoIP.
I pay for my internet connection, and as far as I'm concerned, that is the ability to move data to and from the rest of the internet. When I use a "free" service like dialpad, I pay for it by having to watch advertisements that flash on my screen, and I pay for it because it takes up all of my bandwidth on my 56k dialup. If I use my own program to do it and ignore the ads, I still have the costs of the internet connection and the limitation that the party I'm calling needs to use the same protocol and/or program.
As for real life precedents, its called a newspaper and television. The $.50 or so you pay for a newspaper doesn't cover the costs of producing it. The broadcast towers the US networks put up aren't out of the goodness of their own hearts. Both rely on advertising to pay their costs and to make a profit. I'm sure no fool would rant about broadcast television, yet it has the same effect - I get a "free" service with only the cost of electricity and the willingness to watch ads.
This isn't about getting a free lunch, its about allowing companies to dictate what we can and can't do.
Allowing the telco's in the U.S. to control --anything-- is just plain Bad Mojo.
"Champagne for my real friends - and real pain for my sham friends!" http://ericblade.postalboard.com/
Telephone companies should not be trying to regulate voice-over-IP. No way, nohow - it would be like the oil industry being allowed to regulate alternate-fuel vehicles (a proposition I am quite sure would be seen as ludicrous). Besides, many of these companies are getting into the Net-access business, so it's not like voice-over-IP is really hurting them any.
- White Knight of the Order of Mihoshi Enthusiasts
Um:
The Market. Is. Supposed. To. Reward. Cheapness. and. Innovation.
This does not. Regulations like this hamper efficiency.
and these people call themselves liberals?
Goat sex free since 2001
Do this and the next thing ya know I'll be paying the USPS and UPS etc to send a friggin email.
How they have any right to complain. Mom Bell and co have been gypping Americans for around 40 years now, and now that we can turn the tables on them, they want to go whine to some paid congressman? I say to hell with them. In fact, I say to hell with the entire telephone network, once broadband solutions that don't require telephone lines make up the bulk of internet access. I'd rather just give various groups my email address or an internet telephony number or name than bother with telephone numbers. Essentially, telephony, email, and IM outdates telephones, and all the more so once we have wireless PDAs (which are the future, whether everybody likes it or not). By that time, telephones will be completel obsolete, and, given how little I and many other people I know use them, I say they won't be missed. Teenagers are switching over to IM, and presumably will use the telephony services that both AIM and ICQ (and probably others, I don't know) provide already, they certainly don't need telephones. Ah well, chalk up one rant. I need to go outside and take a walk. /TF
A CD from iTunes: $10 A Song from iTunes: $0.99 Not paying a cent to Microsoft: Priceless
My phone line pays more in taxes than anything other costs. Actualy we have it good most of the world pays per minute charges on local telco connection time any. Thats really the limiting factor for internet pentration in most foriegn countries now.
Apocalypse Cancelled, Sorry, No Ticket Refunds
VoIP should not be regulated by the phone company, as they do not own all of the internet. It is the same as not allowing a new firm to enter the industry, which is definately a monopolistic tactic. Instead, the phone companies should learn from AT&T's history. Remember, AT&T is American telephone & telegraphic. They grew with the times back then, and the phone companies should change with the times now.
As we know it... This will be the thing that will change everything. VoIP is a low bandwidth application and is essentially unstoppable. In the US, unlimited free local calls, are considered a birthright. (and hence unmetered Internet Access). The internet allows packets to move freely over the entire internet. Phone Companies SURVIVE off of pay per minute LD. This is going to be the biggest conflict of all on the Internet. Billion Dollar companies do NOT die without a fight....
Why should any government agency regulate voice over IP? The justification for regulating TV and radio is because of the limited spectrum.
The internet does not have limited spectrum, it grows as needed.
There is no "right" to profit. Should the Feds have allowed the horse and buggy industry regulate the roads? Should the Feds have let the railroads regulate the airlines? Should the Feds have let the slide rule makers regulate the computer industry?
Any government that allows old technology to regulate new for the purpose of ARTIFICIALLY extending the life of an obsolete industry is going to become a technological backwater.
=== The price of freedom is eternal vigilance
What this all ties into is that the long distance companies have become obsolete. And probably were some time ago. They've been making extra profits by selling metered access to the long distance phone network rather than selling it flat rate.
The Internet proves that telcos can sell worldwide unmetered network access and still make tons of money. Why should government step in to gurantee the long distance voice carriers continued profits, when their business model is flawed and obsolete?
Competition with the internet is GOOD for the consumer. Long distance rates have plummeted in the last few years. Sooner or later, LD carriers are going to HAVE to offer unlimited LD service to compete. This is a GOOD THING, and the Internet proves this can be done and still make good money. Any government that seeks to prevent this, and act in favor of an obsolete industry that needs to be FORCED to evolve, to the disadvantage of it's citizens is unjust.
=== The price of freedom is eternal vigilance
The telephone companies have no right to charge for data sent through an ISP. What if they wanted to charge extra for IRC (perhaps charge an extra fee for conferencing?), usenet posts, e-mail, Instant messages, or even web pages/ files, and how would they keep track of all of this? Why should anyone give money to the Telcos for services they don't provide? (this kind of reminds me of that "US Postal service is going to start charging money for each e-mail sent from any ISP" hoax a while back, except this Telco/ISP business is for real, atleast in the Phillipines :(
Bottom line is, in a communist state, the government will do whatever it is paid to do. IMHO, this isn't indicative of what could/should/would happen in the democratic world...
That said, here in .au, telcos (people providing voice telephony) are required to provide holes in their system for 'The Government' to tap and listen to all conversations at will. (You thought the GSM prone system was encrypted and secure? It's not here!). Letting VoIP go wild has the potential to intefere with The Government's self-assigned right to listen in on everything, so I can understand why they'd be all-for regulation.
Once you've done that, you might want to remove your head from your ass, put down the libertarian propaganda and the pot, and grow up.
Time to die, nerd-boy!
Basically I see it like this. There is the VoIP technology, and there is the phone companies. The phone companies see VoIP technology as just another way to make more money, when they already have much more than enough. You look at how Ma Bell broke apart, now you tell me that it's still not a monopoly? Heck yes it is, renting out "their" lines to smaller phone companies. They make money from smaller phone companies becuase the smaller phone companies are basically required to rent out the phone lines from subsidaries of old Ma Bell. I mean sure we are talking about a different country than USA, things are different, but it still looks like a greed issue to me. If VoIP technology isn't interfering directly with the phone company by using "their" lines then I don't think they should have any say-so over it. Things will all change one day, hopefully. As stated by an Anonymous Coward, "The telcos have spent billions of dollars wiring countries for traditional telco service". Yes, billions of dollars they spent, and many many many billions more have they made in profit. To me, I feel that in NO WAY the phone company has ever been mistreated financially. Isn't it about time they quit taking from EVERYONE, and give atleast the peepz on I-Net some slack? That's just the way I feel bout it.
Peace,
TankDawg7
The British intelligence and law enforcement types have volunteered, methinks.
I spent a year in Iraq looking for WMD and all I found was this lousy sig.
Maybe they could write up a distributed-computing program that uses excess bandwidth/CPU time to monitor traffic for voice data, and possibly give a small reward for the capture of these phone-pirates? I can see it now: BigBrother@Home
(Do not sign anything.) -- Fell, Planescape: Torment
Hallooooo? Is there anybody out there??? The Telco's haven't spent billions wiring up the world...the government and taxpayers have paid billions to wire up the world. It's all bought and paid for (by those of us willing and able to pay taxes), regardless of use. Telcos just come along on the end of it to pay their shareholders and executives. How's that for capitalism?
--- Dog in, sausage out -mk