The "P" in "PBX" stands for "Private". A PBX is used within one organization to route internal calls without going to the PTSN, and to allow the organization to get by with less actual PBX lines than extentions.
However, if you operate a PBX, you cannot sell a "PBX service" line to somebody else. You can't sell a phone service without registering as a phone company and complying with all of the regulations that come with being a phone company. Vonage is trying to claim they're not a phone company, yet advertising themselves as "The Broadband Phone Company." They can't have it both ways.
That's exactly what they're trying to do. A pure VoIP call will be unregulated, it's the companies that are trying to call themselves "The Broadband Phone Company" without registering as a regulated phone company that are being called in...
But allowing Vonage to poach the the phone customers in the bandwidth-fortunate territories will be the death of the USF...
The idea of the USF is to set one regulated price for phone services everywhere in the state, with the overage profits from those connections that are easy to serve in the cities being funneled into paying for customers that the ILEC phone company is required to serve at a loss in the rural areas.
If Vonage and friends are allowed to continue unregulated, the eventual end is that nobody in the easy-to-serve areas will be paying into the USF, yet the people who need the USF's support for phone service won't have the luxury of switching to broadband.
Yeah, Vonage is great for people who have broadband, but it does nothing for the people who don't. So, unless you have a solution to the digital divide problem, you've gotta pay the tax to help the unfortunate keep their phone service...
First, let's clear up a definition issue here: The VoIP we're talking about here isn't the actual protocol, it's the use of VoIP to provide a connection into the PTSN, effectively it's POTS-over-VoIP.
POTS is a regulated competitve system at this point. You've got the ILEC former monopolies who now are required to bend over backwards to let CLECs into their interfaces. However, everybody in the POTS business is required to submit their payments into the USF, provide free priority 911 connectivity, and other basic things. What the POTS-over-VoIP services are trying to sell themselves as is a replacement to phone service that costs less, but they're making a lot of their cost savings by cutting corners on the services that the companies they're trying to compete with are required to provide.
That's unfair competition, and something the regulators need to step in on.
Because compulsory licensing, if not paired with a compulsory payment scheme leads to piracy all over again.
Imagine if instead of the turnstyle at the subway there was just a series deep holes into which everybody was expected to throw a dollar-fifty into. Sure, honest people would do it, but just how would you propose to catch the people who actually only tossed coinage that totaled 95 cents, or none at all?
Maybe the conversion rate of 1 picture = 1000 words isn't that far off...
Afterall, the only reason why the RIAA has been fighting the battle harder than the MPAA is because of the higher bandwidth requirements for video, but their day will come too. So, why not whack all of the moles at once with a blanket solution?
Have whatever "rights tax" that applies to music apply to all forms of bits, therefore software, movies, TV shows, books, etc. all fall under the same blanket. Let the size of the file times the number of transmissions be the decider in how big of a slice of the pie you get. Measure things by the size of the actual file transmitted. (This would present the theory that the easier you are to compress and downsample, the less effort was likely to have been put into your work...)
If we're gonna build a compulsory license system for music, we might as well let it cover anything that can be converted to bits. Then all forms of piracy complaints will be resolved at once.
Firewall denies their check, they consider that a failure, the switch in the closet it told to forget about the port to which your wire is connected to, you're off the network, buh-bye.
Not quite sure what that gets you... they simply can lock you out at the network switch in the closet. Your wire is effectively cut, and you go bye-bye...
You're still screwed. The lockdown can be placed at the switch port(s) that leads to your room. Can't spoof those without breaking into the locked closet... which hopefully the RA should be able to stop.
This really is a matter of people being given an inch, then taking a mile, and wondering why they're being pushed back now.
If you play by the rules, campus Internet access is a beautiful thing. However, it's the P2P bandwidth hogs that ruin the party for everyone.
There's no need for P2P to download anything when you've got such a fast connection to Internet2 at your fingertips. Either your school or one nearby will have all the Linux ISOs and other free-to-download programs you'll ever need.
This case alone is the ultimate mistake the RIAA could have made. A easy-to-deny false alligation against an "adorable grandmother" character... way to lose a "hearts and mind" campaign.
When there's too much chlorine content. Tap water's chlorinated, but swimming pool water is chlorinated even more. Put in a whole lot more chlorine, and you're approaching bleach. Drinking bleach sends you to the hospital.
He's missing one of the biggest bonuses... unemployment pay:
Your state pays you to sit at home and make a half-hearted effort for looking for a job, even though you were already really trying anyway. Nice little bonus that reminds you the reason you lost your job in the eyes of the state was not your fault.
Funny how we keep importing concepts that first get produced in the UK such as Who Wants To Be a Millionaire, The Weakest Link, Coupling, Trading Spaces (Changing Rooms)...
Even channels you pay for assume that you're going to watch the ads that come with, and build that into the price. HBO and the like have much higher prices in part because they don't sell ads on their channels.
It's already in the rules that TV programs must make it clear when they're going to a commercial, and also when a directly paid placement is occuring. (Notice how game shows include credits for every company that provided a prize that the producers didn't have to pay full price for...)
The only thing Nader and Co. are bringing forward is that some drama producers are accepting compensation for using an item in their show, even if that compensation is free rental of the item for use in the production and not adding the requisite fine print in the credits, or that time-crunching credit the rolls is dropping these credits off the air in the version that actually goes over the air in major cities.
Seems like this is nothing more than a classic "Gotcha.. now, why weren't the feds paying attention?"
transponder \tran(t)-"span-der\ noun [transmitter + responder] (ca. 1944) : a radio or radar set that upon receiving a designated signal emits a radio signal of its own and that is used esp. for the detection, identification, and location of objects (C)1997, 1996 Zane Publishing, Inc. All rights reserved
Gets GPS data... relays the numbers it gets from that using 2.4 GHz (or maybe even Wi-Fi)... that's a transponder!
GPS is likely only a fall-back feature of their can tracking device. They should know what store the winning cans wound up in just by consulting shipping records. Part of the promotion includes "chase teams" who will give the winner their prizes on the spot, so the device just has to have enough range for the team to detect it as it leaves the store/machine and follow from there...
I assume that these cans would have "chase teams" behind them, especially if they intend on awarding prize winners their prize immediately at the point of purchase. Therefore, the "GPS unit" won't need to transmit its coordinates very far, conventional shipping records should store or machine they need to stake out, and then when the device starts moving they know who to follow and hand the prize to.
If all else fails, the winning cans likely will have a pull of tab that says "you lose" to most people, but tells the winner to call Coca-Cola immedately in case the prize patrol team needs directions.:)
Here's a simular Coca-Cola promotion that went horribly wrong:
The idea was called "Magic Can", you'd open up your Coca-Cola can and real spendable US dollars just might pop out. Of course, the cans with the money in them wouldn't have cola, but instead a device powered by chlorinated water that would propel the bill.
However, the device often got damaged in shipping, and this lead to several cases where a "winner" didn't look before they drank, and ended up digesting the chlorinated water before realizing that their can didn't really have any cola. Their $100 bill would end up getting spent in the emergency room...
Coca-Cola found itself reduced to putting out ads that instructed "winners" how to safely extract the bill in the event of a failed device....
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The "P" in "PBX" stands for "Private". A PBX is used within one organization to route internal calls without going to the PTSN, and to allow the organization to get by with less actual PBX lines than extentions. However, if you operate a PBX, you cannot sell a "PBX service" line to somebody else. You can't sell a phone service without registering as a phone company and complying with all of the regulations that come with being a phone company. Vonage is trying to claim they're not a phone company, yet advertising themselves as "The Broadband Phone Company." They can't have it both ways.
Unless California and Texas merged while we weren't looking, I think you're offtopic...
That's exactly what they're trying to do. A pure VoIP call will be unregulated, it's the companies that are trying to call themselves "The Broadband Phone Company" without registering as a regulated phone company that are being called in...
You're forgetting that in most of Europe "the phone company" is a money-losing government monopoly...
But allowing Vonage to poach the the phone customers in the bandwidth-fortunate territories will be the death of the USF...
The idea of the USF is to set one regulated price for phone services everywhere in the state, with the overage profits from those connections that are easy to serve in the cities being funneled into paying for customers that the ILEC phone company is required to serve at a loss in the rural areas.
If Vonage and friends are allowed to continue unregulated, the eventual end is that nobody in the easy-to-serve areas will be paying into the USF, yet the people who need the USF's support for phone service won't have the luxury of switching to broadband.
Yeah, Vonage is great for people who have broadband, but it does nothing for the people who don't. So, unless you have a solution to the digital divide problem, you've gotta pay the tax to help the unfortunate keep their phone service...
First, let's clear up a definition issue here: The VoIP we're talking about here isn't the actual protocol, it's the use of VoIP to provide a connection into the PTSN, effectively it's POTS-over-VoIP.
POTS is a regulated competitve system at this point. You've got the ILEC former monopolies who now are required to bend over backwards to let CLECs into their interfaces. However, everybody in the POTS business is required to submit their payments into the USF, provide free priority 911 connectivity, and other basic things. What the POTS-over-VoIP services are trying to sell themselves as is a replacement to phone service that costs less, but they're making a lot of their cost savings by cutting corners on the services that the companies they're trying to compete with are required to provide.
That's unfair competition, and something the regulators need to step in on.
Because compulsory licensing, if not paired with a compulsory payment scheme leads to piracy all over again.
Imagine if instead of the turnstyle at the subway there was just a series deep holes into which everybody was expected to throw a dollar-fifty into. Sure, honest people would do it, but just how would you propose to catch the people who actually only tossed coinage that totaled 95 cents, or none at all?
Maybe the conversion rate of 1 picture = 1000 words isn't that far off...
Afterall, the only reason why the RIAA has been fighting the battle harder than the MPAA is because of the higher bandwidth requirements for video, but their day will come too. So, why not whack all of the moles at once with a blanket solution?
Have whatever "rights tax" that applies to music apply to all forms of bits, therefore software, movies, TV shows, books, etc. all fall under the same blanket. Let the size of the file times the number of transmissions be the decider in how big of a slice of the pie you get. Measure things by the size of the actual file transmitted. (This would present the theory that the easier you are to compress and downsample, the less effort was likely to have been put into your work...)
If we're gonna build a compulsory license system for music, we might as well let it cover anything that can be converted to bits. Then all forms of piracy complaints will be resolved at once.
Firewall denies their check, they consider that a failure, the switch in the closet it told to forget about the port to which your wire is connected to, you're off the network, buh-bye.
Why would you need P2P to download GPLed software when you're at a University that's on Internet2? What, FTP over I2 isn't fast enough for you?
Not quite sure what that gets you... they simply can lock you out at the network switch in the closet. Your wire is effectively cut, and you go bye-bye...
You're still screwed. The lockdown can be placed at the switch port(s) that leads to your room. Can't spoof those without breaking into the locked closet... which hopefully the RA should be able to stop.
This really is a matter of people being given an inch, then taking a mile, and wondering why they're being pushed back now.
If you play by the rules, campus Internet access is a beautiful thing. However, it's the P2P bandwidth hogs that ruin the party for everyone.
There's no need for P2P to download anything when you've got such a fast connection to Internet2 at your fingertips. Either your school or one nearby will have all the Linux ISOs and other free-to-download programs you'll ever need.
This case alone is the ultimate mistake the RIAA could have made. A easy-to-deny false alligation against an "adorable grandmother" character... way to lose a "hearts and mind" campaign.
When there's too much chlorine content. Tap water's chlorinated, but swimming pool water is chlorinated even more. Put in a whole lot more chlorine, and you're approaching bleach. Drinking bleach sends you to the hospital.
He's missing one of the biggest bonuses... unemployment pay:
Your state pays you to sit at home and make a half-hearted effort for looking for a job, even though you were already really trying anyway. Nice little bonus that reminds you the reason you lost your job in the eyes of the state was not your fault.
Nah, a huge disclaimer in the Official Rules. If they're giving you a million dollars worth of gold, I take it you'll sign away a few privacy rights.
Funny how we keep importing concepts that first get produced in the UK such as Who Wants To Be a Millionaire, The Weakest Link, Coupling, Trading Spaces (Changing Rooms)...
Even channels you pay for assume that you're going to watch the ads that come with, and build that into the price. HBO and the like have much higher prices in part because they don't sell ads on their channels.
It's already in the rules that TV programs must make it clear when they're going to a commercial, and also when a directly paid placement is occuring. (Notice how game shows include credits for every company that provided a prize that the producers didn't have to pay full price for...)
The only thing Nader and Co. are bringing forward is that some drama producers are accepting compensation for using an item in their show, even if that compensation is free rental of the item for use in the production and not adding the requisite fine print in the credits, or that time-crunching credit the rolls is dropping these credits off the air in the version that actually goes over the air in major cities.
Seems like this is nothing more than a classic "Gotcha.. now, why weren't the feds paying attention?"
transponder \tran(t)-"span-der\ noun [transmitter + responder] (ca. 1944)
: a radio or radar set that upon receiving a designated signal emits a radio signal of its own and that is used esp. for the detection, identification, and location of objects
(C)1997, 1996 Zane Publishing, Inc. All rights reserved
Gets GPS data... relays the numbers it gets from that using 2.4 GHz (or maybe even Wi-Fi)... that's a transponder!
Quote not found in linked document.
GPS is likely only a fall-back feature of their can tracking device. They should know what store the winning cans wound up in just by consulting shipping records. Part of the promotion includes "chase teams" who will give the winner their prizes on the spot, so the device just has to have enough range for the team to detect it as it leaves the store/machine and follow from there...
I assume that these cans would have "chase teams" behind them, especially if they intend on awarding prize winners their prize immediately at the point of purchase. Therefore, the "GPS unit" won't need to transmit its coordinates very far, conventional shipping records should store or machine they need to stake out, and then when the device starts moving they know who to follow and hand the prize to.
:)
If all else fails, the winning cans likely will have a pull of tab that says "you lose" to most people, but tells the winner to call Coca-Cola immedately in case the prize patrol team needs directions.
Here's a simular Coca-Cola promotion that went horribly wrong:
The idea was called "Magic Can", you'd open up your Coca-Cola can and real spendable US dollars just might pop out. Of course, the cans with the money in them wouldn't have cola, but instead a device powered by chlorinated water that would propel the bill.
However, the device often got damaged in shipping, and this lead to several cases where a "winner" didn't look before they drank, and ended up digesting the chlorinated water before realizing that their can didn't really have any cola. Their $100 bill would end up getting spent in the emergency room...
Coca-Cola found itself reduced to putting out ads that instructed "winners" how to safely extract the bill in the event of a failed device....