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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.
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.
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
1. Note that kphone is more a research project that end-user friendly software. It became much better in the last year though.
2. The user part is your number, e.g. "17556" (my number). The host part is "fwd.pulver.com". The outbound proxy is "fwdnat.pulver.com:5082" and the authentication username is "17556". If you are on a NAT, you should go to 'SIP Preferences'/'Socket' and set 'Stun server' to yes.
3. SIP stands for Session Initiation Protocol.
"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.'"
Notice the future tense. The FCC hadn't ruled yet. They were going to make a decision. This story is abut the decision they made. Whether the ruling was a foregone conclusion is debatable, but that doesn't make it a dupe. Get a clue.
If a job's not worth doing, it's not worth doing right.