Slashdot Mirror
FCC Rules On Pulver Free World Dialup
An anonymous reader writes " Light Reading is reporting that the verdict is in on Pulver's FWD. 'The first big decision was a victory for VoIP proponents. The commission ruled that Pulver.com's Free World Dialup VOIP service is an information service, not a telecommunications service. The decision was based largely on the analysis that it doesn't fit the 1996 Telecom Act's definition of a telecommunications service.' To me this was a no-brainer on the part of the FCC. Let's see if they get the rest right too."
Apparently it's free... but the site was down when I arrived. The main site can be confusing, but the FWD site is: http://www.fwd.pulver.com.
From Thursday.
Of Rewriting Rules on Delivery of the Internet and Free World Dialup Under The Gun Again and in FCC: 'Pure' VoIP not a phone service and Mr. Pulver to D.C. (David Farber's Interesting People).
DSL Prime: Telco Cowboys, Mr. Pulver to D.C.
A rare victory for small business in VoIP should not obscure the fact that DSL competition is fading across America.
by Dave Burstein
DSL Prime
[February 13, 2004]
"Deliver 100 meg to almost all Americans."
-- John Cioffi. Ivan Seidenberg of Verizon, Brian Roberts of Comcast, and Bob Blau of BellSouth all recently spoke of moving to 50 and 100 Megs.
They delayed the FCC meeting this morning, but as this issue is going out Jeff Pulver should be getting miraculous news at Thursday's FCC meeting. None of us believed his Free World Dialup petition had any chance, despite the logic of moving voice to the net. "Mr. Smith"--actually, Mr. Pulver, a small businessman--went to D.C. and convinced officials his cause was right. The phone companies realized they can still game the system and stay ahead, and even the FBI offered to compromise on ruling the internet.
Friday is also the day for bids on AT&T Wireless, a deal that will probably go down because $300 million in commissions and accelerated options are at stake. Amazing that bids are at $30 billion for an outfit whose profits are negligible and headed negative, and whose management wants to cash out. Buying AWE is essentially a bet spectrum will go up dramatically in price despite the return of the analog TV band, SDR, and the FCC's plan to make more available. It's time for John Wayne CEOs to ride into the sunset.
Meanwhile, our technology produces everyday miracles. Jef Raskin writes "just gave a talk in Graz, Austria, via iChat AV. Real time voice and video, both ways. We set up the session by discussing it (at no extra cost above my standard DSL line) via audio, video, and text (all simultaneous)." His California Pac Bell connection may soon go to 3 Mbps+ down, 600 Kbps up, making that even easier. Everyone who cares about the user experience should read Jef's The Humane Interface.
Last week, yet another CEO told me how important the interface is, then showed me something second rate. Imagine if the designer of the Macintosh defined your user experience. Companies like Verizon, (whose install is thankless) or gateway/set top vendors should get it right by bringing in Jef, a friend, or similar talent.
Martin on Competition "Time now to speak"
"I'm proud to have stood up for what I believe was right"
"I'm afraid we may be losing some of the battles" to preserve the competition that currently exists. "Policy-makers in Washington are not debating the benefits of the services you offer," he said. "They are too frequently debating how much of the rules should be eliminated, and how should the changes be made to be more fair to the incumbents."
"If you have a message to deliver, I think the time is now . . . . Speak now or forever hold your peace. You must now be your own champions." (From Telecommunications Reports)
Editor's opinion: The right choice is either strong competition or strong regulation. If we don't want direct regulation of telcos' rates and profits, then we need regulation that creates thriving alternatives. Incumbents' economies of scale and financial power allow them to crush others unless curbed. As far as I'm concerned, calls for policies that cripple competitors are also a call for strong government intervention to keep prices down. One day, I'll report a Tauke or a Whitacre call for limiting CLEC access using the headline "Verizon/SBC calls for return to strict rate of return regulation"--the alternative implied if they kill the opposition.
Telco Cowboys
Repairmen to John Wayne CEOs
Ed Whitacre wants to spend $30 billion on AT&T Wireless, building an empire deserving of Ozymandias. He's blind to the AT&T folk desperately looking for an exit, as profit heads towards zero and beneath. Decimated Ameritech has lost $30 billion or more in value, and would have required a career-ending write-off except for an accounting l
Kphone is one (only?) linux client. I signed up, got a FWD number, and now no clue what to do next.
;)
I ran Kphone, and it says it needs Full name, User Part of SIP URL: and Host Part of SIP URL:
I assume full name is the name I signed up with. But wtf are User/host part of SIP URL?
BTW, SIP is never explained. No where should someone use an acronym without first explaining it.
So someone beat with me a clue stick and tell me what to do next and I"ll give you a call
No, this is exactly what Free World Dialup is all about. You get a number assigned to you by Pulver, and that's associated with your SIP connection information. You can then sign up with one of several VoIP-to-PTSN connection companies, and suddenly you have a 10-digit dialable number that leads to your SIP software.
Of course, you'll have to pay for the VoIP-to-PTSN connect, and that's the service the FCC will regulate, Pulver's number assignment process however is not something that the FCC is going to complain about.
It was Wednesday.
Ok, replying to myself
1 0/thr ead01300-0.html
On this page it told me what to do:
http://lists.trolltech.com/qt-interest/2003-
If you are behind a NAT/Firewall, the configuration
should look as follows:
Full Name: 19489
User Part of SIP URL: 19489
Host Part of SIP URL: fwd.pulver.com
Outbound Proxy (Optional): fwdnat.pulver.com:5082
Authentication Name: 19489
If you access the Internet directly, donot use
outbound proxy.
Here, replace 19489 with your account. You can apply
for a FWD account from www.fwd.pulver.com.
Well, none of that was obvious to me, but maybe I've smoked too much wacky in my time.
First off, ugly old version of qt app. Is there another app for this in linux?
Second, tried all the audio settings, and it sounds pretty bad. Definately am radio quality and a little choppy. I'm on a dsl connection and a very clean connection. I get no/minimal packet loss in other realtime apps (streaming music, online gaming) I just tried phoning their 411 and 612 for time just to hear the quality so I didn't actually speak to someone so I"m not sure how bad the lag is in talking to someone in realtime, but just on judging this audio quality of what I'm hearing I don't have my hopes too high.
Are there other codecs available to install to make it sound better? Or maybe a different SIP host to smooth out things? I've always thought voip could be cool but everytime I try it I"m disappointed. I've never tried but heard that skype one made by kazaa is amazing quality for windows only though. Not sure if that's actually true, but if it is, what are they doing different that some of these other apps?
But the traditional voice circuits are carried over copper or glass, no electromagnetic spectrum required there. Satelite & RF links are rarely used for circuit switched voice anymore, the quality of service over copper wire or glass fiber is better & the high capacity makes costs low. Does that mean my landline phone is not a communications thing? VoIP is also most certainly a commnication thing, but part of the FCC's charter is to encourage communications technology for the common good. There are financial implications, and they are intentionally "unfair". What we have now, at least in the US, is a very uneven playing field. There are different catagories of companies that provide phone service (they are vying for the same consumer dollars) but are treated differently:
The incumbent landline company is still regulated even though they no longer have the advantage of being a monopoly.
Non-incumbent landline companies are much less regulated.
Mobile providers are taxed at a lower rate and are required to supply fewer emergency services (though this is changing).
VoIP is almost completely unregulated and untaxed. Provides almost no emergency services other than passing the user to the PSTN network.
VoIP suppliers, and to a lesser extent the non-incumbent landline providers & the mobile service providors, are riding on the coattails of the incumbent landline service providors. They get cheap facilities & services, are held to a lower requirements of service, and are taxed at a lower rate.
The incumbent is required to lease facilities to competitors at a rate based on the cost of those facilities. Then, when the incumbent needs additional facilities (because it was required to give them to its competitors) they must build new facilities at a higher cost. This puts them at a huge competitive disadvantage, eventhough there are charges applied to other providors that are funnelled to the incumbent (to offset the cost of providing service to everyone, emergency services, inexpensive/free service to schools, libraries & the poor, a higher quality of service. So there are huge financial implications and they are arificially skewed.
There is reason to favor the new technology, or at least there was. It makes it easier for new services & technologies to develop. However, in my opinion, it's time for VoIP to pay its own way. The technology is there, it has been around for quite some time now. It already makes tremendous sense in some areas e.g. a campus or company with excess data transmission capacity can make use of the spare bandwidth for voice. The hotel I'm in has integrated data & voice facilities, since many travellers to business hotels now require high speed network connections this scheme works well. It's even beginning to make sense to replace traditional switched circuit facilities -- I visit many Central Offices that belong to different telephone companies (wireline & wireless). Almost every CO I've been in recently has VoIP. They aren't tearing out their traditional switches but most have passed the trial stage and are using VoIP for growth now. Expect changes, VoIP will be expected to hold its own soon.
"Glory is fleeting, but obscurity is forever." --Napoleon Bonaparte
go to: http://pulver.com/fwd/downloads
there is a port for Kphone for Linux
They decided that Pulver's service (which basically just helps two VOIP endpoints locate each other) is just an internet service, and is not a "telecommunications service." They didn't pick up the question as to whether VOIP/POTS services (like Vonage) are telecommunications services in the sense that the FCC and the states regulate.