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Vonage Says VoIP Traffic Blocked By Providers
Anonymouse writes "Advanced IP Pipeline reports that Vonage has filed numerous complaints with the FCC over their VoIP traffic being blocked by major providers, something providers have long worried about but had not yet been seen 'in the wild.' Analysts expect the issue of network neutrality (or network discrimination) is only going to get larger as the bell and cable companies expand their VoIP efforts and bump heads with smaller providers."
...yet you wonder why people want municipal broadband...
2 years and no mod points. Join reddit. Because openness is good.
But ISPs want to be seen as common carriers when it comes to the filesharing lawsuits filed by the RIAA/MPAA. If ISPs want to reserve their right to block traffic like Vonage, then they must also fufill their obligation and block illegal P2P traffic.
They can't have their cake and eat it, too.
I welcome our new 99% overlords.
that Vonage et al don't want to be taxed like telephone companies, but want the same (FCC) protections as to access to the network?
every day http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Random
To reiterate my point, if Vonage wants to not be regulated, it should not expect others to be regulated for its benefit.
They're not leeching off of anything. Users are PAYING for monthly access to that broadband. It's not like the infrastructure isn't be paid for. The phone and cable companies are simply trying to force (AGAIN) consumers to utilize their services...
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I think the market and/or the FCC will quickly put a stop to this.
The customers are already paying for network access. Using the network they are paying for is not "leeching".
If your cable company started an on-line newspaper and thus blocked access to all other news sites on the net, would that be OK?
Trust the Computer. The Computer is your friend.
Substitute http, or ssh, or telnet for VOIP and see how fast the ISP get's condemned.
Then substitute blocking say, Google's http traffic on MSN's network because MSN has a search feature now that they want their users to use... can you see how this can quickly lead to an ISP going down the drain when other's retaliate?
Are you really getting "Internet" access from the cable provider now? Sound like some of AOL's problems? At least AOL doesn't selectively prevent their customers from accessing their competitors.
Many cable companies have a government granted monopoly on cable internet access for these customers. Should they really ban their customers from say, accessing dishnetwork's site because they're a competitor?
It's like Microsoft making a mod to the DNS resolution in windows to keep people from accessing any Linux promoting websites. Would you be up in arms over that?
If an ISP's contract with their customers prohibit's a protocol, then fine, but someone with a government monopoly to provide a service (in this case, cable internet) shouldn't be able to put restrictions banning their customers from accessing their unrelated competitor on that service.
Of course, the problem with the cable companies has always been their government monopoly status. Thank goodness for DSL and satellite dishes allowing for a little relief lately.
The party of stupid and the party of evil get together and do something both stupid and evil, then call it bipartisan.
When we built our own VoIP technology we used blowfish encryption and used dynamic ports. As a result, the packets look like generic TCP packets and there is no way to tell what's underneath.
Fine. They're saying they have control over their network? Sue the pants off of them for every scrap of kiddie porn provided by a user, every spam sent out from their network, every hacker busted over their wires. If they can control the flow through their traffic like that, then they're responsible for their traffic. Can't have it both ways.
This is one of the things that pisses me off the most. They block my own access to my own computers. At the same time they allow some cluelees n00b next door to download craploads of kiddie porno vids. I'd hardly use any network resources even if I could accept inbound web, mail, etc traffic but no they have to go and fuck with me and leave him to download gigs of porn.
The whole dynamic IP things irks me too. I want a real IP address and the right to use the Internet however I see fit without having to buy a business package. I'm not running a business in my home so why should I need a business package? For that matter why should a business need a business package if it's the same type of connection.
We should just create community-funded networks and leave the commercial guys in the cold if they won't give the consumer a good enough deal to compete. Why don't we have city-wide gigabit networks plugged into every home and business?
At what price learning? At what cost wisdom? The price is a man's peace of mind, and the cost is his life.
More than competing services from providers, the consolidation of communication companies is going to have a huge negative impact. Maybe they'll start providing VoIP for free, by raising monthly cable/DSL prices by $20/mo., gradually. Perhaps they'll institue a system-wide policy to slow-down VoIP traffic from other providers, and/or drop a fairly small number connections from competitors over a (randomized) length of time.
More than that, the consolidated companies can throw their weight around much more. The FCC should slap any ISP for doing something like this, but with such large companies, they can bribe everyone in Wahington, and have enough lobbyists to provide as many sound-bytes as it takes.
As I type this, Verizon is merging with MCI, and somewhere a few more politicans and CEOs are getting richer, while driving service, reliability, etc., into the ground.
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The IP providers are trying to have it both ways.
With one side of their face, they claim that they cannot be held accountable for the content that traverses their network. This is the "common carrier" argument, they are selling connectivity only. Just like the road is not liable for being sped upon.
But with the other side of their face, they block services that they think are inconvenient to their business model, such as blocking port 80 inbound to subscribers unless they buy "business" rate services, or block port 25 outbound with the excuse that "it blocks spam".
So what happens when they are dragged into court, and have to explain how they can do both of these things at the same time? Likely nothing, they have good lawyers.
Which reminds me, the FCC would just LOVE to get their regulatory claws into the IP service business. This gives them multiple paths, "ensuring customer equity", "preventing unfair competition", and worst of all is their claiming that since the content of services they already regulate (like phones and TV) are being delivered by IP now, their regulations apply to the new medium.
Whatever you do, don't remind them that the entire justification for the FCC is to "regulate scarce resources (broadcast spectrum) for the good of all", and IP is not a scarce resource.
Bureaucrats hate being told they have no jurisdiction. They will go get some and come back in force. Watch out, you selective filtering IP providers, you're just setting yourselves up for a nasty fall.
Bob-
The Ludwig von Mises Institute. The reasoning individuals economics
Apparently you have some misconceptions of how SIP works too.
The latest SIP RFC (RFC 3261) *requires* (in normative text) that all devices support both TCP and UDP as transport protocols. SIP devices MUST use TCP as a transport mechanism if the message to be sent is within 200 bytes of the MTU of the transit link.
Also, SIP has no "GET" header (like HTTP). The SIP methods defined by RFC 3261 include INVITE, REGISTER, ACK, BYE, CANCEL, and OPTIONS. Other subsequent SIP-related RFCs include other methods such as PRACK, SUBSCRIBE/NOTIFY, INFO, and UPDATE. These are all well defined and the RFCs are publicly available.
I agree with the parent poster that SIP devices should be considered servers. I'd go one step further that the RFC defines a PEER TO PEER protocol, where all SIP devices MUST act as both clients AND servers. If I call you, my request is made from the "client" aspect to your "server" aspect. Once the call is setup, if you hang up the phone, your BYE message is sent from your "client" aspect to my "server" aspect. This is the nature of SIP.
I hate to sound pesimistic, but the only true solution is true deregulation of the last mile. An independent operator of the physical facilities within a locality.
Let's not forget wireless broadband, which will most likely cut a nice big piece out of the cable and telephone companies. When you eliminate "fiber to the curb" as a prerequisite for getting in on service provider racket, a whole new crop of providers will start popping up.
Your courageous and selfless spelling corrections have made me a better person.
ISPs are most explicitly NOT common carriers!
Under US law, as interpreted by the FCC, ISPs are engaged in "information service". This is a service rendered atop underlying "telecommunications", which, if provided as a "service" (for a fee), would be common carriage. But what that means is that ISPs usually buy their bandwidth from common carriers. (They can also self-provision, as via wireless, or when a cable companies provides it over its own wire. Then there's telecommunications without common carriage.)
ISPs, as information services, are expected to do more than pass along raw information. Indeed one of the legal justifications for their being treated a "information" rather than "carriers" is because they do have the right to pay attention and sometimes do. Spam filtering, address-range blocking, virus filtering, pr0n filtering, etc., are all "information processing".
Now along comes VoIP. It flaunts its non-common carrier status. Vonage got an FCC ruling (now being appealed by state regulators) that it is not a telephone company subject to common carrier rules (and taxes). The logic basically goes like this:
- Telephony is common carriage
- IP is usually used to carry information
- Information is carried above common carriage
- VoIP is carried inside IP packets
- Therefore VoIP is information, not telephony.
If you look carefully, you can see why the states are upset. As an analogy, assume that postmen wore gray suits and policemen wore green suits. If a postman put on green trousers, could he give you a traffic ticket? (There's a minor technical flaw in their reasoning, because Vonage-type companies actually interconnect with the telephone network via regulated, taxed telephone companies. But they don't always play by the same rules.)
Still, the point is that ISPs are not common carriers. Vonage and other parasitic VoIP service providers (that's a technically-correct description, not an insult, because they take advantage of ISP and telecom services already paid for by their customer) don't pay like telephone companies, and have to adapt to the underlying transport (ISPs), to whom they pay nothing. So if the ISP wants to block them, it's perfectly legal. Your recourse is to change ISPs. Telephone companies pay for their wire. It shows up in the price.
Now here's the catch -- what choice of ISPs do you have? Cable companies don't usually offer choice, or else usually only offer two (themselves and maybe one little-advertised option). Telco DSL is technically a common carrier telecommunications service that has to offer service to any ISP that asks; Verizon Online is supposed to be just another ISP to the Verizon Telephone Companies. That's why Speakeasy can run over Verizon wire. However, Verizon and BellSouth have petitioned the FCC to drop all of those rules. They want to not be common carriers, and want instead to use their wire to carry their own ISP, period, no choice. See the FCC's web site, e-filing, ECFS, Docket # 04-405 and 04-440. As "self-provisioned ISPs" (like cable companies), they would be allowed to block Vonage freely, and deny you access to competing ISPs. This is what the Bush FCC appears to have planned for you.
There is a big difference when it comes to common-carrier or anti-competition.
The whole point there is that you can't favour a particular "who" - if a railroad company said "freight trains are too heavy for this bridge and will have to divert" then probably ok, wheras if it blocked freight trains from other companies but allowed its own, it wansn't.
If the ISPs are just blocking _all_ VOIP traffic then fine - they aren't delivering a full IP connection, but (in most cases) nothing forces them to. If they are blocking Vonage VOIP whilst allowing their own VOIP then I would have thought you are right into the realms of competition law, particularly if the ISP has a monopoly on the network provision.
Not gonna happen.
That would be pretty stupid and neanderthal, too. It can't be done in secret. The first technician who is hauled before a Grand Jury is going to give up his managers in a heartbeat. The first manager hauled in will give up the droid suits in a heartbeat. The droid suits will be indicted. I imagine they're stupid enough to try it until a few of them have been consigned to the graybar hotel for a few years.
Vonage has over 350,000 "lines" and is adding them at 30,000 per month. The genie is well out of the bottle and can't be put back. VoIP growth is now running at 900% per year. Shipments of VoIP switch equipment have surpassed shipments of traditional switch equipment. The avalanche is well underway and people who have tasted affordable, flat rate VoIP service that works from almost anywhere on the planet are going to be out for blood if any politician, bureaurat or weasel telecom tries to get in the way.
I invite any telecom droid who wants his career to turn into a blackened, smoking pit to just try messing with VoIP traffic. Expect existing laws to be stretched to cover this and expect interference with VoIP traffic to be criminalized very soon.
Grandma to her congresscritter: "I don't know why, but as soon as my cable Internet company offered its own voice over Internet service, my Vonage service began to develop noise and dropped calls."
congresscritter: "We'll look into it, ma'am. We've had a lot of calls about this in the last week."
congresscritter to aide: "Harvey, get on the phone with FCC and the AG's office. These ISPs are fucking with my consituents' lives and safety. Find a law, and let's break their fucking legs with it."
Look at the bright side: there's always seppuku.
The argument that LECs and ISPs have been using to avoid liability for filesharing is that they are not content providers and have no responsibility to filter or otherwise regulate the content that is delivered over their links. However, once they start filtering VoIP, then they are implying that they are indeed making an effort to regulate content, and therefore are opening themselves up to more legal nightmares.
The only problem with your argument is that these ISPs have binding contracts with their customers to provide a certain amount of bandwidth. So if their customers use Vonage, then Vonage traffic should be able to absorb every bit of that bandwidth, all the time. It's hard to imagine that the amount of bandwidth they've promised customers is less than the 160 Kb/sec you claim that Vonage consumes. So if they can't handle all their customers simultaneously using 160 Kb/sec then they are guilty of fraud because they have sold something (bandwidth) that they are unable to provide.