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Vonage's CEO Says VoIP Blocking Is 'Censorship'
Avantare writes "CEO of leading VoIP provider says port blocking of VoIP traffic is one potential small step toward an unwanted future of IP-based censorship.
According to Vonage Holdings Corp. CEO Jeffrey Citron, intentional blocking of Voice over IP traffic is more than just a competitive dirty trick -- it's an act of censorship against free speech.
In an exclusive interview here Tuesday [March 1], Vonage's chief executive said the issue of the company's recent incident of having some VoIP traffic blocked reaches beyond the market for IP-based voice communications and into the realm of free speech -- and as such, should be protected by the courts, the FCC, or by new telecom regulation that ensures free and open access over the Internet."
the market will take care of this
the day my ISP blocks a voice over IP port is the day that I switch to another ISP
Unless that ISP is named "Congress" or someone to whom Congress has delegated a monopoly position, I don't see the connection to Free Speech.
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...just anti-competitive business practices by entrenched, government-sponsored monopolies. Still bad - but I guess "censorship" elicits the stronger, knee-jerk reacion.
Seen any BadMarketing lately?
and as such, should be protected by the courts, the FCC, or by new telecom regulation that ensures free and open access over the Internet.
Wait, so do is VOIP regulation a good thing, or is it a bad thing?
I'm confused.
You probably shouldn't click this.
So Mr. Citron wants VoIP to not be regulated as a voice service, but as a data service. But says that blocking his data service is censorship of free speech? So if my ISP blocks me from accessing IRC, is that censorship of free speech? They are both data services right? Make you your mind Mr. Citron! ( I should note that I am a Vonage user, and dislike the blocking, but I do find this comical. )
This is interesting, though then you have to wonder how long it will take for someone to develop something that filters after doing a DNS lookup, i.e. user wants to connect to port 80 at Vonage, filter does dns lookup and says "no way" since it isn't a web service.
Doesn't such selective conetnt filtering make them lose that status? Sounds like bad mojo for them.
Free Mac Mini Yeah, it's
ISPs shouldn't be required to support VOIP, any more than they're required to support email, FTP, or any other service. An ISP should be free to choose the services that it wishes to support, and a customer can then choose an ISP that offers the services that he desires. If VOIP is a good thing, then customers will punish ISPs that don't support it. If it's bad, then VOIP will die (as is natural in a competitive marketplace). The VOIP cry of censorship is just an attempt to get legislative backing for a business model.
Make sure you pick up some Senators on the other side of the aisle before the bill goes to the floor. Always better to have a bipartisan group on board from the start, rather than letting the bill get stuck in a political quagmire.
Find a dictionary. Not sure where you got the idea that "only governments censor." It's only a First Amendment issue when the government is involved, but that doesn't change the fact that this is censorsihp: namely, an ISP telling you what communications you can send/receive over your connection.
The bigotry of the nonbeliever is for me nearly as funny as the bigotry of the believer. - Albert Einstein
I have begun to think that the distinction between corporations and governments isn't so cut & dried as some people seem to think it is. I think any organization becomes government-like as it grows larger.
Need a Python, C++, Unix, Linux develop
Only governments can censor? Say what?
References please?
According to Vonage Holdings Corp. CEO Jeffrey Citron, intentional blocking of Voice over IP traffic is more than just a competitive dirty trick -- it's an act of censorship against free speech.
No, it's a commercial entity telling you how you can use their network. Don't like it? Give your money to someone who will allow it.
Port blocking of VoIP traffic, he opined, is a step down a slippery slope that could lead to network owners blocking content or Web sites they disagreed with.
As much as I disagree with ISPs blocking any sort of traffic they do have every right to do so as you are using their network and unfortunately for most people you are *usually* under no contract of service w/the ISP that says they cannot stop you from doing whatever it is you want.
Content providers already effectively block content they don't want you to see. There have been reports of ISPs blocking traffic on ports 6881 to 6889 and trackers requiring you to use different ports (see http://tmnsp.net as they require you to use alternate ports because of this). Comcast (the largest consumer broadband ISP) doesn't offer Usenet access except through a third party. Other ISPs don't offer ALL Usenet groups - they are keeping you from some content!
"The FCC could come out and institute the largest possible fine they could, with the sternest of statements saying, 'this will not be tolerated,' " Citron said. "That might send a strong enough message."
Or the large conglomerate providers, who already have the FCC in their pockets, could just pay the FCC off and tell them to ignore the problem. I don't see this solving anything.
Personally, I think Vonage should make their software impossible to trace. Yeah it could make the quality/speed take a hit but it would protect them. They can't ban ALL traffic or no one would use the service. Pipe the shit over 443 and be done w/it.
"It'd be unfortunate to have to pass a law [against port blocking and other types of interference], but we may have to," Citron said. Though he said he has previously testified against the need for port-blocking regulation, Citron may now change that tune, especially if more network operators start using port-blocking or other techniques to selectively control Internet traffic.
The implications are too far reaching. I wouldn't be able to block spammers and hackers from hitting my machine because Vonage can't sell their VoIP service?
"What are people using broadband to do? Communicate," Citron said. "They [network operators who block VoIP] are restricting your ability to communicate with another person. And that's censorship."
People are using broadband to download porn, POP email from their ISP, and CNN.com from the web. As long as they can do that people will be happy. Find and partner with ISPs that will allow your traffic and point possible (and current) users in that direction but certainly don't believe it will stop an ISP like Comcast from blocking your ports. They have millions of subscribers who are clueless (just like Comcast wants them). If you think that anything less than a good percentage of Comcast would make them change their ways, you've got another thing coming.
Welcome to the future of conglomerate communication control!
I'm not even it's semantics. I think it's apples and oranges.
I DO think it's a smart move on his part to cut through the crap and use those phrases to get to the public. Simple phrases like "free speech" and "censorship" play to the masses and ultimately get though the "Trade Federation Lobbist Blockade(TM)" to Congress and other politicians.
Polititcians tend to want to at least LOOK like they are on the right side of the free speech/censorship issue, even though this is a competition/marketplace issue. Now that this has gotten thrown against the public wall, they have to at least address it.
"What the hell is an aluminum falcon?"
Bosh.
Governments are not the only entities capable of censorship. Anybody who has control over any communication medium can exercise censorship.
Only governments censor. This would be anti-competitive. Semantics, yes, but an important distiction nonetheless.
You are incorrect. First anyone can censor, not just governments. Second, these corporations are given special legal protections by acting on behalf of the government as "common carriers" of communication, and as such are required to maintain impartiality in order to retain that status. An ISP is immune from prosecution for carrying child porn, only so long as it impartially transmits data, regardless of what it is, and does not attempt to police the content of its network. Whichever ISP this is just opened themselves up to prosecution for child porn, copyright infringement, libel, false advertising, etc., etc.
How the hell did this get a +5 Informative? It's incorrect, not informative.
Of course one wonders how long until they just filtered out connections to a specific IP, but that's another issue.
"People who think they know everything are very annoying to those of us who do."-Mark Twain
The ISPs don't need to port block. They can block at the application layer. Numerous solutions exist out there to shape traffic at the application layer, including recognizing the RTP traffic associated with a SIP call.
I don't think the big guys will block VOIP. They don't need to. If they prioritize their in-house VOIP traffic and then just treat the BYOV (Bring Your Own Voip) traffic as normal web - or perhaps even a lower level, the call experience will not be as good on the BYOV as the in-house. Bundle this with their marketing power, triple play capabilities, and power backup (the cable companies are already building out power backup), and they won't need to block it - the "market" will work it out for them.
Censorship is blocking somthing based on its content. Blocking calls that contained foul language would be censorship. Blocking ALL voip calls is not censorship.
It may be anti-competitive behavior, it may put their common-carrier status at risk and it sounds like improper behavior, but it is not censorship.
Ooh, private network. Good point. I guess all the telcos better give back all that funding and the tax breaks and the eminent domain right-of-way and everything else that they got because they were making something of public benefit. There are very few large corporations, and none that built, build, or maintain nationwide infrastructure, that can make a non-laughable claim that their network is "private". Hell, strictly speaking, the *only* reason corporations are even allowed to exist as legal concepts is to provide societal benefit. It's right there in the legislation.
A, what? VoIP uses veddy veddy little bandwidth; it's quite doable over dialup, let alone broadband. The main concern is latency and jitter, not bandwidth.
A T1 should be able to support, well, at bare minimum, the 24 voice channels it really is. And VoIP takes less bandwidth than the 64 Kb/s those channels are using.
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Just because someone has an ability to do something, it is not the same as having the right, morally, ethically, legally or otherwise, to do so.
;)
Internet service can be viewed just as phone service is -- as a common carrier device. If a phone company were to block certain incoming or outgoing calls without your prior autorization simply because they can and don't want you to, for example, contact a competing company to set up service with them, they'd find themselves in a HUGE pile of doo-doo.
In this case, and I may be reading this wrong, but they are blocking a type of internet traffic for no reason other than to be anti-competitive. This harms the consumer. And before you start saying "well then they should just move to a different ISP!" there are times then they are the only broadband game in town and as such could be found to be abusing monopoly power... that's yet another big pile of doo-doo they don't want to find themselves in or else they'll end up like Microsoft and... oh wait, nevermind that is a bad example isn't it.
But seriously, if they begin blocking types of service that customers have access to, then it's time to examine the terms of service at the very least... but I think someone from the DoJ should be peeking into this affair.
My isp, comcast, specifically, for the entry level cable modem account, PROHIBITS in the AUP the use of servers for the end user.
(with comcast pro, this can be waved)
Do you not consider the hardware reciving input when a voip customer recieves a call on the end users machine to not be within the definition of a server? or do you think that this portion of an AUP is illegal, and therefore should be ignored? ala civil disobedience- or a third possibility I haven't considered.
I'd like to know- comcast reserves the right to block ports when customers are found running servers....
whats your response to that?
every day http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Random
"It is a private network?" Please. If a phone company started monitoring my phone calls in order to find out which brand of corn flakes I prefer, nobody would defend them by saying, "Well, it's their system."
The Internet is becoming a critical enabler of free speech, and if those who carry Internet traffic are going to start unduly mucking about with the packets I send, then it's time to make them stop.
You would have a point, if VOIP actually consumed mammoth amounts of bandwidth, or otherwise disrupted service for everyone. But it doesn't. Certainly there are much more pressing bandwidth hogs to go after. Anyways, all the quality of service issues that might be relevant to this could be handled by using simple traffic shaping against heavy users, without regard to what functions the traffic was serving.
Essentially, you're saying that if the Internet can do something, but your ISP would make more money if you were doing it a different way, it has the right to keep you from doing it over the Internet.
You want the truthiness? You can't handle the truthiness!
Even if he was a lawyer, his conclusion is specious given the fact that Internet providers are not government agencies. If free speech was not subject to contract law, then there'd be no such thing as non-disclosure agreements. If you pick an Internet provider the prevents you from using VOIP, then that's what you get. If you don't like it pick somebody else.
The exception to my statement is situations where there is monopoly power in a given market. If your only option for high speed internet is one company, then I think that company may have a higher obligation to open up to competitors for VOIP traffic.
In the end, I suspect companies that make a habit of forcing people to use their VOIP will simply drive customers to other Internet providers.
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I can't comment on what the legal parameters are but one of the benefits is a level of legal immunity.
If my child stumbles across some pornographic site on the web, it would be unlikely that I'd be able to squeeze any cash out of the ISP for presenting the material to her. They will argue "We're a common carrier, we don't limit or scrutinize the information you access through us so we have no way of protecting you or your child from any information you may be presented with" or some such.
If they were to start censoring information presented to customers it is conceivable that they could be required to uphold community standards. They are no longer a "common carrier".
Other examples of common carriers:
Phone companies (not liable for criminal activity or operations that violate local community standards, like phone sex)
Mail Carriers - Not liable for illegal or community standard violating material.
=Shreak
Maybe Comcast, SBC and the rest of the ISP crowd don't care about the content of your communications but there are powerful groups that most definitely do care about that content. The RIAA, MPAA, BSA ... they all come to mind, and believe me they are interested in censorship, as in "eliminating all Internet traffic with which they disagree". I'm not sure what the legal definition of censorship is (that's all that counts, you know, the dictionary definition is irrelevant) but it doesn't matter. Call it what you will: censorship, anticompetitive measure, stupidity ... the fact is that ISPs deciding what is and isn't an "acceptable" use for the network is bad for the Internet and bad for us users. ISPs want that power, which is why they fight being considered "common carriers". They also want all the legal immunities that come along with common carrier status, and they want them without the associated regulatory burdens. This is called "having one's cake and eating it too."
In any event, if we're as freedom-loving a society as we like to think we are (and as we tell everyone else who will listen) we need to nix the idea right now that communications providers should be able to do anything but ship packets from point A to point B. That's a precedent that needs to get set immediately.
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
The particular company in this case is considered a common carrier by the FCC. The FCC enforcement action that was getting investigated was based on common carrier language in the 1934 Telecom Act, section 201(b). What the FCC was about to claim is that the VoIP communication service consituted a "just and reasonable" service, and blocking VoIP was going to be determined unlawful because it was "unjust or unreasonable". The consent decree entered with this ISP terminates the investigation, but could expire no later than 30 months from today.
http://www.fcc.gov/
Essentially, you're saying that if the Internet can do something, but your ISP would make more money if you were doing it a different way, it has the right to keep you from doing it over the Internet.
Let me think. Hmmm... Yes! Gee that question was easy!
I realize it's fashionable nowadays to pretend if it weren't for the benevolence of an omnipotent government we would all be miserable choice-less slaves of corporatism, but it's simply is not true. You do have a choice. If you don't like your ISP, get another one! How hard can it be?
Let's take a different service and see if you statement still makes sense. What about roads (you know, the whole info superhighway analogy thingy). You're saying that if you possess the technical ability to do something on the road, you're insurance company doesn't have the right to prevent you? Bullshit! If you don't like your insurance company telling you how to drive, find another company! Duh!
p.s. Yes, I realize that some poor schmuck living in Waxhole Tennessee might only have one tiny dialup ISP in their neck of the woods, but somehow it's always those in universities with several dozen ISP options that complain about this.
Don't blame me, I didn't vote for either of them!
Replace VOIP with HTTP and your point has exactly the same validity, which would be none at all. If nobody can send a message to my computer without explicit permission from my ISP then what you have isn't Internet service as it has traditionally been known. It's something else that happens to use the TCP/IP stack and is being fraudulently sold as Internet service.
Whatever customers they can retain after they have to truthfully disclose what they're offering, they're welcome to. I don't think they'll be enough to stave off bankruptcy.
One of the basic properties that defines a free market economy is the lack of government-granted monopolies. By that guideline the telecom industry completely fails at being even vaguely related to a free market.
-- The act of censorship is always worse than whatever is being censored. Always.