Most customers will prefer providers that actually offer 911 features in the first place. It's a value proposition and people usually take their family's security pretty seriously.
I think it should be left alone, people can make their own decisions. If they choose a VoIP provider without 911 then it's their problem (or perhaps they use it as a second line and have 911 on their POTS).
Not entirely true... Don't forget that FWD only provides Internet calling. If you want a gateway to the rest of the world (i.e.,the PSTN) then you have to pay.
If FWD were to provide PSTN gateway and PSTN reachable numbers then it would be just like Vonage.
Not sure the FCC would see FWD the same way in that case...
Sounds screwy, but it's true. If you optimize a network for one type of application, you de-optimize it for others. For example, if you let the network give priority to voice or video data on the grounds that they need to arrive faster, you are telling other applications that they will have to wait. And as soon as you do that, you have turned the Net from something simple for everybody into something complicated for just one purpose. It isn't the Internet anymore."
The way I see this, prioritizing packets also ensures that a minority of users can't abuse the network ressources the everybody else want to use.
Right in my home network I had to prioritze RTP packets (VoIP) so that other people in the house couldn't screw up my phone conversations when saturating my uplink or downlink. The same can be true on a national backbone, especially in failure conditions where you will get links that saturate.
We can't stop the Internet from evolving either, it has probably turned out to be very different than what it's creators had envisioned...
Don't Dismiss Apex Too Quickly...
on
More ApeXtreme Info
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· Score: 2, Interesting
According to this article Apex already beat Sony on their own turf by selling more DVD players in the US than any other manufacturer.
Personaly, I think the Apextreme box would make a fine HTPC (like a frontend to MythTV).
(Why attack 4%, 8%, or 12% when you can attack the 76%?)
Funny that a lot of the grief we have had from MS attacks were because of IIS and SQL server... Both of which have significantly less market share than Apache and Oracle for example...
My take on this is that they won't even get passed the ISPs. AFAIK, in Canada they would need a warrant signed by a judge to get personnal information about a subscriber from an ISP...
As exited as I am to see Internet services such as VoIP become mainstream, part of me still thinks that POTS will still be here for a while.
A couple of things to consider:
- You need broadband and not everybody has it, can get or will ever want it
- Cable and DSL (especially cable according ot my own experience) are definitely not as stable as POTS. They are next to useless when power is out unless you AND you proveider have UPS
- Emergency services are still an issue with VoIP. I'm expecting the first headline about someone dying because 911 wasn't available on VoIP anytime now.
- There is still no end to end QoS on VoIP. Home gateways are still too dumb to prioritize VoIP trafficover your Pr0n traffic.
This is all nice and all but how the hell are they going to regulate this exactly? Sure it might be easy to target companies like Vonage but what do you do with all the free services out there like Skype or Free World Dialup?
The price of Microsoft's newest version of Windows, released last week, is aimed squarely at Linux. With Small Business Server 2003, Microsoft knocked 60% off the price of its previous Small Business Server, introducing a standard edition for only $599, right between Red Hat's $349 basic edition (software only) and $799 standard edition (software plus phone support).
With RedHat wouldn't you just have to buy one copy of their standard edition software and be able to install it on multiple servers? Would this be a breach of their license? In any case this would be a definite no-no with Microsoft...
How can they compete with mp3's that can be acquired for free, have no restriction AND can play on any platform (Windows, Mac, Unix) or portable device?
To attract consumers to their service they must have some value added service. All I can see is less value with all the DRM restrictions and the propietary format they chose. I own three portable mp3 players (one is an iPOD) and none of them can play this WMA crap.
Give me a true alternative to P2P applications, a reasonable price (a lot of their albums are over $10CND) and I will use a paying service for sure(I currently use eMusic but it's only good for indy music).
Seems to me like the FBI is simply trying to see how far they can go with this. IMHO, they won't get away with it, it's quite a strech to define a journalist as an ISP but who can blame them for trying?
Is that no matter what tests they come up with, the athletes who are "cheating" always seem to stay ahead and not get caught... Much like music sharing and the RIAA;-)
I see a lot of posts saying that in the US cable is winning because the country is so big and not densely populated etc. How do we explain the situation in Canada then? BCE, who own Bell Canada has 1,002,000 DSL subscribers according to their last quarterly results while Rogers Corporation, the country largest cable provider, has 594,200 subscribers(in all fairness, I should also include numbers from Videotron, who is the cableco in Quebec but they don't publish their numbers. In any case, they would be lower than Rogers' numbers which would still leave BCE #1). All this in a country bigger than the US and waaaay less densely populated and who has a similar cable and POTS penetration...
The best part is that BCE was about 2 years AFTER Rogers into the broadband market...
Slashdot Mirror
I wonder if the equipment sold in Canada will be required to honor those broacast flags?
;-)
Now it's prescription drugs tomorrow it will be TV sets...
Most customers will prefer providers that actually offer 911 features in the first place. It's a value proposition and people usually take their family's security pretty seriously.
I think it should be left alone, people can make their own decisions. If they choose a VoIP provider without 911 then it's their problem (or perhaps they use it as a second line and have 911 on their POTS).
Not entirely true... Don't forget that FWD only provides Internet calling. If you want a gateway to the rest of the world (i.e. ,the PSTN) then you have to pay.
If FWD were to provide PSTN gateway and PSTN reachable numbers then it would be just like Vonage.
Not sure the FCC would see FWD the same way in that case...
"Adding value to the Internet lowers its value
Sounds screwy, but it's true. If you optimize a network for one type of application, you de-optimize it for others. For example, if you let the network give priority to voice or video data on the grounds that they need to arrive faster, you are telling other applications that they will have to wait. And as soon as you do that, you have turned the Net from something simple for everybody into something complicated for just one purpose. It isn't the Internet anymore."
The way I see this, prioritizing packets also ensures that a minority of users can't abuse the network ressources the everybody else want to use.
Right in my home network I had to prioritze RTP packets (VoIP) so that other people in the house couldn't screw up my phone conversations when saturating my uplink or downlink. The same can be true on a national backbone, especially in failure conditions where you will get links that saturate.
We can't stop the Internet from evolving either, it has probably turned out to be very different than what it's creators had envisioned...
According to this article Apex already beat Sony on their own turf by selling more DVD players in the US than any other manufacturer.
Personaly, I think the Apextreme box would make a fine HTPC (like a frontend to MythTV).
(Why attack 4%, 8%, or 12% when you can attack the 76%?)
Funny that a lot of the grief we have had from MS attacks were because of IIS and SQL server... Both of which have significantly less market share than Apache and Oracle for example...
Imagine what kind of gadgets the CIA have available to them today...
What's also interesting is that the gadgets are not the type you would expect. I.e., not what we are used to see in movies and all.
My take on this is that they won't even get passed the ISPs. AFAIK, in Canada they would need a warrant signed by a judge to get personnal information about a subscriber from an ISP...
More control from the music industry and Micrsoft... I bet they can't wait to add this to WMA.
As exited as I am to see Internet services such as VoIP become mainstream, part of me still thinks that POTS will still be here for a while.
A couple of things to consider:
- You need broadband and not everybody has it, can get or will ever want it
- Cable and DSL (especially cable according ot my own experience) are definitely not as stable as POTS. They are next to useless when power is out unless you AND you proveider have UPS
- Emergency services are still an issue with VoIP. I'm expecting the first headline about someone dying because 911 wasn't available on VoIP anytime now.
- There is still no end to end QoS on VoIP. Home gateways are still too dumb to prioritize VoIP trafficover your Pr0n traffic.
I can't see how they can "lock" anything since it is clearly stated that the initiative will be open sourced...
Of course, Microsoft will probably figure out a way to break it so that it only works with their products but that's a different story...
This is all nice and all but how the hell are they going to regulate this exactly? Sure it might be easy to target companies like Vonage but what do you do with all the free services out there like Skype or Free World Dialup?
The price of Microsoft's newest version of Windows, released last week, is aimed squarely at Linux. With Small Business Server 2003, Microsoft knocked 60% off the price of its previous Small Business Server, introducing a standard edition for only $599, right between Red Hat's $349 basic edition (software only) and $799 standard edition (software plus phone support).
With RedHat wouldn't you just have to buy one copy of their standard edition software and be able to install it on multiple servers? Would this be a breach of their license? In any case this would be a definite no-no with Microsoft...
How can they compete with mp3's that can be acquired for free, have no restriction AND can play on any platform (Windows, Mac, Unix) or portable device?
To attract consumers to their service they must have some value added service. All I can see is less value with all the DRM restrictions and the propietary format they chose. I own three portable mp3 players (one is an iPOD) and none of them can play this WMA crap.
Give me a true alternative to P2P applications, a reasonable price (a lot of their albums are over $10CND) and I will use a paying service for sure(I currently use eMusic but it's only good for indy music).
Seems to me like the FBI is simply trying to see how far they can go with this. IMHO, they won't get away with it, it's quite a strech to define a journalist as an ISP but who can blame them for trying?
Is that no matter what tests they come up with, the athletes who are "cheating" always seem to stay ahead and not get caught... Much like music sharing and the RIAA ;-)
Sympatico being the largest Canadian ISP, I've always wondered if one of their servers could survive the /. effect. I guess we'll find out!
The guys at waxy.org also used donations from the public to buy the guy a 30G iPOD and $3600CDN worth of Future Shop gift certificates.
I see a lot of posts saying that in the US cable is winning because the country is so big and not densely populated etc. How do we explain the situation in Canada then? BCE, who own Bell Canada has 1,002,000 DSL subscribers according to their last quarterly results while Rogers Corporation, the country largest cable provider, has 594,200 subscribers(in all fairness, I should also include numbers from Videotron, who is the cableco in Quebec but they don't publish their numbers. In any case, they would be lower than Rogers' numbers which would still leave BCE #1). All this in a country bigger than the US and waaaay less densely populated and who has a similar cable and POTS penetration...
The best part is that BCE was about 2 years AFTER Rogers into the broadband market...