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Free World Dialup Under The Gun Again
PetiePooo writes "The FCC will be holding an Open Commission Meeting [PDF] Thursday. Number one on the agenda is a 'Petition for Declaratory Ruling that Pulver.com's Free World Dialup is neither Telecommunications nor a Telecommunications Service.' By passing this, the FCC will, in Jeff's words, 'send a strong signal to consumers and capital markets that the FCC is not interested in subjecting end-to-end IP Communications services to traditional voice telecom regulation under the Communications Act.' For those unfamiliar with it, FWD is sort of like DNS for VoIP. You give it a FWD phone number, it gives you the IP address of the associated SIP phone. Slashdot touched on FWD three years ago, and again last year."
Would this service be almost impossible to provide if the FCC regulated it as a telecom?
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Would this mean that the FCC will instead write up new regulations and restrictions for VoIP? Instead of lumping it under Telecommunications?
Slashdot sucks
Then this is obviously a dupe news post.
Since the site is getting real slow with only 3 posts, here is a mirror:
Mirror
Michael Powell was on the tv show Screensavers over at techtv. He stated he didnt want to regulate, and wanted to open services. He made some interesting comments, like how when the FCC didnt regulate what goes on the Internet, all the services, companies and inventions that came out of it. He then started on the free unregulated spectrum they are allowing people to use for Wifi ISPs.
He sounds like hes on the ball for most stuff, was rather impressed he wants the market to grow, and to now cripple it with regulations.
I still don't trust the FCC, but at least it shows he understands the regulation powers of the FCC, and avoiding it. Or maybe he's just not bought by special interests yet.
My concern is if VOIP is not regulated properly, it may become widespread enough that it will affect the revenue the companies that maintain the land lines, and reliability will suffer. Clearly VOIP cannot be as reliable as POTS, as it requires a much more complex consumer hardware and software. Cell phones could be nearly as reliable as POTS except that the wireless companies seem to be more focused on bells and whistles rather than insuring basic service.
It may be that we can no longer afford reliable telephone service. If so, I would like to see that decision made intentionally.
"She's a scientist and a lesbian. She's not going to let it slide." Orphan Black
When automated processes control the world, we won't need jobs. It's a step forward. Can I take the blue pill now?
Here's a link to an article about the Feds wanting more time before the FCC rules on VoIP so they can figure out how to tap into VoIP calls.
Technology's main goal has always been to eliminate jobs. This is why 99% of us aren't toiling in fields at the moment. Sure, it puts a lot of people out of work, and we need free bread and circuses to keep 'em out of trouble, but do you really want a job doing what is in essence pointless busywork? Eventually a new problem will spring up that needs a lot of work thrown at it. At the very least, a morass of paperwork has started to mount, and there is never any end to red tape. Ever. So look for a job processing stupid bureaucratic garbage, no machine can ever figure out how to process it!
Karma: Excellent^(-t/Tau), Tau=Wittiness/Trollishness
When automated processes control the world, we won't need jobs. It's a step forward.
Kind of like when Skynet goes online?
oh wait..
FWD works great and I highly recommend it. They even provide voice mail. Pulver has done a great thing, and the FCC has absolutely no business screwing it up! I don't need to call 911 over IP, and I don't want regulatory access fees and taxes to pay for 911...
-Erik -- --This message was written using 73% post-consumer electrons--
I'm trying hard not to become a Luddite here, but how can we save jobs if technology's main goal is to eliminate those jobs?
If that was true, the United States, arguably the leader in technological advances over the last 100 years, would be at the bottom of the pile, rather than the top. In truth, technology may eliminate some jobs, but it always creates MORE jobs. It merely moves them from one business to another.
When the automakers replaced humans with robots, the smart humans went to work for the companies that make the robots. Those companies and their suppliers employed more workers than were replaced by the robots. The serpent can not swallow it's own tail.
By that same logic, your post should have been sent via the postal system. It's not a perfect analogy, but I think the argument is similar to the one about email vs. the postal service. I don't think we need to outlaw innovation to protect jobs. /rant off
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Use Asterisk. If everyone starts to use asterisk then how are they going to keep track.
Because although the VeriChip doesn't fall into the "food" or "drug" category, it's dangerously close to the line and the investigation was into if they have crossed it.
The VeriChip makers suggest that it could be used future to provide information about an unconcious person to medical personel. Such a use would be a medical use, but since they're only implanting the thing in a few people without providing the readers to any of those people's medical providers... uhm, the medical application hasn't been developed yet.
Also, they're going into a rather new territory that maybe should be regulated. Afterall, body piercings are regulated by the states, but who's regulating ID chips implanted into humans? There's serious health risks associated with implanting things into humans that don't belong there, so some safety protocol needs to be followed to make sure they're doing things right. If the FDA doesn't have the power to regulate, then somebody should be...
VOIP is no more "telecommunications service" than instant messaging is. One goes over powerlines that are routed through trunks at your telephone company and involve charges across state lines and intercompany transmission fees/credits and government regulation, state utilities, utility commissions, government employees, oversight, etc.
The other is sending bits of data from one computer, over the internet, to another computer. Some bits may be recombined to produce "talking" or another bunch of bits may recombine to produce images of a videogame or an email. In this case, it's voices.
The only thing at issue here is whether or not the old phone companies can be given welfare and sort of a "mafia" type protection so that VOIP can't compete with them and THEY can control it. It's like Don Corlione moving into another drug product and forcing everyone who was selling it out of their territory.
I for one welcome our new Amish overlords.
(Sorry, I couldn't resist...)
In truth, technology may eliminate some jobs, but it always creates MORE jobs. It merely moves them from one business to another.
I disagree. Technology just plain eliminates jobs.
Society, however, creates new ones to fill the gap.
I agree with you that we are not going to be in a situation where we cannot get any jobs for people. The folks proposing things like this are ridiculous. Luxury items have *always* filled up the gaps -- the wealth always pay a premium for some new status symbol or slight standard-of-living increase.
In India, it is quite financially feasible for a moderately wealthy person to have a number of servants. In the United States, *very* few people have a number of servants, because human labor is so expensive relative to most people's income -- we have a very strong middle class. There are lots of people who would be interested in getting a maid, a gardener, etc if they could afford to do so.
The fact that many people that would like to have servants do not have them is simply because of the fact that we have a vast number of jobs to fill, and people have gone for more desireable ones.
That was just a single example. Are machine-made items generally more uniform, higher quality, more efficient to produce, and cheaper? Sure. However, they don't have the character that hand-made items do. They aren't *unique*. In the US, human labor is expensive (again, lots of jobs relative to the number of people.), so hand-made items are rare, but still purchased by the wealthy. If technology eliminates more jobs, hand-made goods will become more affordable. Yes, you could cheaply get a photograph of a painting on your wall, but it's just not the *same* as having the original painting on your wall.
Our productivity always increases. If we wanted to retain an 1800s standard-of-living, then we would have had most of the population out of work a long time ago. Demands on standard-of-living always cause increases. Heck, today I can walk into my living room (I live in a house with numerous rooms -- far more than the two rooms that the poor would have had a few hundred years ago.) I can turn on the television. A few hundred years ago, the wealthiest king could have had perhaps multiple sets of performers playing at a major event -- a feast, a wedding, etc. I have something like *forty* different stages of performers constantly performing (channels), any of which I can watch. I can even repeat bits I like. The movies and shows contain content that simply could not have been produced in mideval times.
I can go down to the store and choose just about any food I want in the world, and I can afford it. I can eat oranges in the dead of winter, if I want to do so (and I just did this morning). I can eat *ice cream*, which used to be something that was pricy even for royalty.
I wear clothes that have a finer knit, are more durable, and probably more brightly colored than even kings could enjoy.
Each night, I can relax as heated water -- as much as I'd like -- is continuously poured over me. The temperature can be increased exactly to taste with a flick of my fingers.
I can speak with my friends at any time, no matter where in the world they are, and much more quickly than by sending out a horse and rider.
I cannot smell the people that I live with, and they don't need to cover up their own stench with perfume, as would have happened a few hundred years ago. Our clothes are washed with almost no effort.
Our water is drawn and heated for us. Our bread is toasted to taste for us. We can get many varieties of hot food within a few minutes (thanks to the microwave) of the moment we think of it. We can obtain exotic spices of almost any sort. Our dishes are washed for us. Our rugs are beaten for us (thank you, vacuum cleaner). Cold foods are kept easily available to hand. If I want hot chocolate, instead of pumping water, lighting a fire, putting the water over the fire, waiting half an hour,
May we never see th
That's a rather fatuous argument, don't you think? Of course they're having trouble answering questions regarding what they'll be doing in a hypothetical situation which, if it comes about at all, lies decades down the line. It's not like the TelCom industry is going to commit seppuku rather than attempt to remain competitive.
911 compatability wouldn't be hard. If things ever DID reach that point, the government (which centralizes 911 anyway, remember) and the industry work out some new protocol for handling VoIP 911 calls. And that's the other half of the equation - the VoIP industry has to be strong enough that the government sees a need to make it easy for them to get into 911. Once they hit that point, it'll happen quickly. (just as, originally, cell phones didn't have 911 on them, no?)
Bush: He's Liberal in all the wrong ways.
I've posted this before, when the topic came up on another occasion, but it's worth repeating.
The FCC is NOT going to regulate computer-to-computer "phone" calls. If you run voice over your Internet connection, as an application, it's your business, and that's that. Even the guy who drafted the infamous ACTA petition in 1996 now thinks VoIP is cool stuff.
The problem is the phone call between the consumer with a plain old phone line and the VoIP network. "Phone to phone" and "phone to computer" calls have a telco leg that's just a plain old voice call. Under current law, a phone call can be either "telephone exchange service" or "exchange access service". The former is basically taken to mean a local call, though the legal definition is a bit more expansive. The latter is taken to be the local phone company's leg of a toll call (what AT&T or MCI buys). Guess which one costs more.
Now if all VoIP calls were treated as local ("telephone exchange service"), then the local telephone companies (think: Bells) would lose money that they now make from exchange access service ("switched access"). And the rural phone companies, who charge the long distance companies MUCH more than the Bells for that service, in order to compensate for higher costs (that is, to subsidize local service to the sticks), are very protective of switched access revenues. And the flyover states each have two senators.
So the main issue will come up around the far end of a Vonage call, for instance -- if Vonage is a long-distance company, they will have to pay access when they deliver a long distance call. Just like other long distance companies. Skype's on-net calls, and FWD, won't be touched as long as they are on net. Count on it.
Ideally, the whole access thing would go away, and the distinction between access and local would be moot. That's the way it works in msot of Europe, I think -- it's an American tradition to classify things to death, and let the lawyers litigate like crazy over the classification. How many billable lawyer hours do you think this case will be worth in Washington?
1. Why do we want to use a number to contact a specific phone instead of alphanumerics to contact a person like an email address? When we use a phone, are we trying to contact another phone, or a person? Unless it's a business line, isn't it usually a specific person we're trying to reach?
2. How long until we start getting VoIP spam?