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SBC's VoIP End Run
Chris Holland writes "Right on the heels of a positive FCC regulation preventing individual U.S. States from levying taxes on VoIP communications, SBC, according to Om Malik, appears to have brought to a quick end the 'lets not pay any termination fees' party that had VoIP upstarts drunk. Jeff Pulver is also sharing his take."
Many overlooked the fact that Cisco bought a company called P-Cube recently. One of the things P-Cube can do is prioritize the traffic flows on an IP network. SBC could use it and lower the priority of the traffic coming from say Vonage or AT&T. Nothing illegal here: SBC's network and it can do pretty much what it wants on its own network. Poor quality, lags, dropped packets and soon Vonage customers could be switching to SBC VoIP: which is more expensive, has better quality and of course is highly profitable.
Actually, it *is* illegal to directly interfere with a competitor's business. SBC would be criminally liable if they tried to prioritize the traffic of their competitors.
While companies like Qwest (Old US-West) are embracing the technology. Qwest's CEO has been vocal about their plans to compete head-to-head against the startup VoIP companies. To put their money where their mouth is, Qwest explicitly agreed to let any VoIP service terminate traffic in the Qwest local markets without paying termination charges. Just the exact opposite of SBC...... Why the 180 degree polar opposite decision by two of the largest telephone companies in the country? IMHO, Qwest is embracing VoIP themselves while SBC is late to the game, again. SBC seems to come up dead last in any data or telephone technology. What else to do but try to slow down all the competitors.
I hope you are enjoying this. Back when it was stylish and in vogue to pile on AT&T with the thoughts of AT&T being the "Big, Bad Monopoly" (though highly government regulated), we had one communications structure - well defined and orchestrated for its time. But of course there were the people served by the Great Telephone Experiment (GTE) that never could get it right. Yes, AT&T had their problems but when my phone was out, problems were fixed the first time out. Now, no one knows what to make of this morass called wireline telecommunications. YOU let the genie out of the bottle and now we have to sort through this mess and the "The $ is King" Federal Clueless Commission just rubber stamps proposals without really using their brains to understand what their decisions mean. I will bet a wooden nickle that these decisions by the FCC are being done to featherbed their pockets for when their time is up at the expense of the users. So, now it is time to direct the frustrations toward the Southern Boys Club and it is well deserved!