Great Article on Net Neutrality

[Apotheosis]

too big to post. no linking issues

http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/012/348yjwfo.asp

[Bobmuhthol]

Net neutrality is the bomb.

[Kranar]

I wasn't really sure if it was just my own internet connection or a problem in general, but my internet in the U.S. is significantly slower than what I had in Canada and I have to pay almost twice as much ($50 U.S. a month here vs. $35 Canadian) for it. This is comparing Comcast to Roger's, both are cable internet providers.

Didn't realize there was such big lobbies and politics behind this.

[Buckwheet]

Your $50 is cheap.

Mine is $75 for the same Comcast service you have.

[Wezas]

I pay $40/mo. for Cox Cable

Just tested it, this seemed to be about the average:


Speed
16.1 megabits per second

Communications 16.1 megabits per second
Storage 1.9 megabytes per second
1MB file download 0.5 seconds
Subjective rating Unbelievable


http://www.bandwidthplace.com/speedtest/

Who knows how accurate they are though.

[Jazuela]

Communications 1.1 megabits per second
Storage 137.6 kilobytes per second
1MB file download 7.4 seconds
Subjective rating Good

Not too bad for $14.95 a month with ADSL, through 3 firewalls. I'm not sure if the firewalls slow down the test, but I would imagine it would just a little bit.

[Bobmuhthol]

Firewalls are retardedly useless.

[Buckwheet]

My connection is 6mb/380kb/s for the $75 per month. I could pay $10 more and get 9m/896kb/s through the same cable company. I choose not to because they are already getting more from me then I can stand.

DSL is not availble but if it was, I could get that for $38 per month on a 7m/896k speed.

Comcast in MN sucks.

[Apotheosis]

Another great article on net neutrality

http://blogs.graphicdesignforum.com/skirkland/archives/2006/06/the_art_of_war.html#more

The Art of War

Understanding Net Neutrality

We are about to lose the only opportunity we may have to free ourselves from long distance bills, even the ones for overseas. I know I would like to call my pal Brian J. Dooley in New Zealand for a chat without imagining my money flying out of my pocket, free to speak until I’m well spoken. I bet you would, too. You’ve probably heard all about net neutrality; how the IPs want to have a two-tiered service, saying they want to charge more for premium content like movies. Well, that’s not what they’re really after. If they told you what they really wanted, they would never get it past Congress. Here's the skinny on Net Neutrality from the mouth of a fellow artist.

Strategy is extremely important in business when the playing field is level. Now that almost everybody in the world has a mobile phone, landlines are no longer a major source of revenue; but long distance charges have always been a profit center for the telecommunication industry. Well, they were—until a large number of long distance customers realized their broadband connections could free them from long distance carriers. With a small interface, you can use your broadband connection the same way you use your telephone. You may have noticed that some IPs have started promoting their own VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) products, even though they charge $39 for the same service Vonage offers for $24.99. If net neutrality isn’t maintained, it won’t matter. When the IPs can control content speed, that’s the end of VoIP and Vonage and Skype. Why? Because VoIP is particularly sensitive to speed variations and calls will be dropped if the signal slows.

Business is the art of extracting money from another man's pocket without resorting to violence.
—Max Amsterdam

Using your broadband connection for telephone service through a provider like Vonage is the greatest thing since sliced bread (sorry, I couldn’t resist). It's unlimited nationwide long distance plus 500 minutes of free long distance off continent for $24.99. That’s it--flat fee. so there’s no more $350 long distance bill in addition to the usual $50 landline bill. Imagine the loss of revenue to the phone companies. That’s why the phone companies and cable companies refer to VoIP providers like Skype and Vonage as parasites and that’s what net neutrality is really all about.

Information on the Internet is subject to the same rules and regulations as conversation at a bar.
—George Lundberg

As soon as the push for net neutrality became an issue a few years back, techies like Robert Cringely read between the strategic press release lines. Just like we sit around and talk about the intricacies of font families and conflicts created within certain third party PDF files, the techies talk, too. Here’s how Robert explained it:
“Here's how they plan to cripple the Vonages and Skype's, according to friends of mine who have spent 20+ years in engineering positions at telephone companies, cable companies and internet service providers. As the phone and cable companies begin offering their own VoIP services in real volume, they plan to "tag" their own VoIP packets so that at least within their own networks, their VoIP service will have COS (Class of Service) assignments with their routers, switches, etc. They also plan on implementing distinct Virtual Local Area Networks (VLANs) for the tagged packets.”

Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it whether it exists or not, diagnosing it incorrectly, and applying the wrong remedy.
—Ernest Benn

So, now you know what Net Neutrality is really all about. If you’d like to preserve your freedom of choice and not pay for nationwide long distance now or in the future, it’s a good time to email your senator. The House of Representatives have already agreed to let telephone and cable companies kill VoIP; but we still have time to voice our opinions in the Senate. Or, if you enjoy paying by the minute, well, keep quiet. If you don’t care, send that long distance money in with a smile every month.

The power of accurate observation is commonly called cynicism by those who have not got it.
—George Bernard Shaw

Also of interest:
The Best days of Voice-over-IP Telephone Service May Already Have Passed by Robert X. Cringely

Here's an argument FOR. Courtesy of Experts Exchange

Here's an argument AGAINST. Courtesy of Experts Exchange

Find your Senator's email address here.

Find your House Representative here.

[Jazuela]

Well if the issue is truly long distance phone calls, then it doesn't affect me at all. I don't pay for my long distance calls. It's part of my phone service. I can talk to a friend in California for 4 hours and my monthly bill will show the phone number, with a lovely round little "0" in the charge column.

[Bobmuhthol]

WTF, Jazuela? That's not it at all.

[Buckwheet]

Speaking strictly from working for a regulated public utility I can tell you that my phone company loves the idea of VoIP. It means we get to actually charge people more money to use our unlighted and lighted fiber and it means that we can double charge you for a service you already pay for.

What we don't like are the following things:

It is unregulated, which means anyone can jump in and start offering the service. There are huge consequences with this such as outsourced support, no support, and things such as promising the world and not delivering. It also opens the doors for companies not based inside the US to offer the products. This can cause additional traffic over cheap internet lines and can cause problems for legit customers of high end data communication.

If you loose power, or your broadband connection goes south, you loose 911 ability, and until recently 911 information was very limited.

We are a regulated entity, which means that we have to meet standards setforth by the PUC of each state. This also means that we have to get approval on what we can and can't sell. For example, we sell cellular phones on a nation wide network. Other companies sell on this network as well.

However the other companies can sell their services in all 50 states, while we are restricted to 14. That doesn't make sense to us. Same with VoIP Vonage and others can sell to anyone anywhere, yet we are limited to 14 states of customers.

One of the inherent problems for us, as the phone company, is that millions of people have DSL services which come across an already existing phone line. When customers switch to VoIP, and get rid of the voice services, they think that the price of the DSL should stay the same. Because well, nothing changed on their end. The fact of the matter is that a lot of line maintenance and other costs need to be absorbed into maintaining the copper line to your premis. So the stand alone DSL prices are higher then DSL on a phone line. So in many cases they see a cheaper cable or unregulated service provider able to provide them cheaper. We as the phone company still need to maintain the copper equipment up to the PUC standards so even though you are only getting DSL on your copper lines, we still have to maintain them for the quality voice traffic.

Now with good reason, people look at us as the big bad monopoly. But much of the information out there is simply not true, and nobody ever reports on the main reasons why companies like mine are unable to do the same things as brand new companies. Its because of us being a baby bell, and part of the big Ma Bell breakup.

[edited to add]

The comment about us coming into the VoIP market and tagging our packets so they get priority is true, but not to the extend they are claiming. Right now some of the best fiber in the US for point to point, not cable modem to the internet to your office, but private T-1 services or more, are provided by networks like the company I work for. Right now many businesses can get a dedicated T-1 from us for their VoIp solution. So when you have two offices on T-1s by the same phone company, that are across the country from one another, it makes perfect sense that we encode those packets and send them through the lowest congested links on are OWN private network. In essense we create a VPN for those customers from site to site that stays on our internal network because we guarantee certain things with these customers. Hell most of the lines do not even have consumer internet traffic running through them. We spent billions of dollars in fiber in the ground to create one of the best fiber networks in the country with no assistance from the government. Why shoudn't we be able to provide a product on a sub section of this network for customers who want to pay for it.

As for telling a webhost that if they have fiber from us in their datacenter our millions of DSL users will get their content faster, thats totatl bullshit and should be stopped.

[editted to further add to this stupidly long post, I deal with this crap every day...]

I don't understand why people are getting their panties in such a twist over this. I agree its bullshit and we do not need additional commercialization of the internet services that get us the data. Paying for access to the data such as online game manuals or software is totatlly different. However many people do not realize how much your internet connection is already being mandated. There are several "Top Tier" providers such as UUnet, AT&T, Sprint, and Time Warner. Everyone who works in the internet world already knows who the big daddys are and their prices are around $30,000 per month for a dedicated GiGe comit to a major datacenter. Then there are Tier 2, and even Tier 3 data providers. One of them is a budget fiber provider named Cogent. Many users in the internet world use Cogent because their prices are about $10,000 for a GiGe comit to a major datacenter. This allows much of the large file download sites such as megaupload to function. You get okay speeds for very little cost. The problem is that Cogent has to agree to pass traffic on their network from other providers, its calls a peering agreement. What most people don't know is that if two companies get pissed at eachother, the big ass tier one provider can just unpeer from Cogent and block all cogent traffic from going across their network. It just happened recently between Level 3 and Cogent. Millions of users affected, but nobody cared. Nobody cared that Level 3 just decided enough was enough and broke the connection. So in closing, all of our broadband connections, when connecting to other websites are already being prioritized by the level carrier the traffic is being passed to. These carriers can choose to limit, block, re-route, or congest connections on command. The only thing that has changed is that they want to pass it along to consumers to pay for this ability.

Okay, I am done now I really am. This issue of net neutrality has been blown up, with some very good reasons, that have led to just tons and tons and TONS of bullshit being spread around. Many of the truths of what goes on behind the scenes of the net are not being published and are not being discussed. The only thing many people can agree on, is that we can not allow it to get worse.

[Tsa`ah]

Well if the issue is truly long distance phone calls, then it doesn't affect me at all. I don't pay for my long distance calls. It's part of my phone service. I can talk to a friend in California for 4 hours and my monthly bill will show the phone number, with a lovely round little "0" in the charge column.


WTF, Jazuela? That's not it at all.

That's really an understatement on your part Bob.

Jez, you can make that 4 hour call to Cali largely BECAUSE of neutrality. If the large carriers get their way ... you start getting charged for those calls. You have the plan because it's a method of marketing to KEEP you as a paying customer instead of using a voice over net service.

It doesn't stop there. If net neutrality goes to the wayside, your ISP is likely to become a tiered service. That nice little charge you pay for ASDL would likely to become a "basic" charge. Essentially you'll be able to e-mail and browse, not much beyond that. And by browsing I mean text and pictures ... nothing much beyond that. Viewing embedded video and listening to embedded sound will likely mean you have to pay more money. Playing mmorps will likely mean you have to pay more money. Uploading and downloading anything will likely mean you'll have to pay more money.

So ... yes, it has a huge affect on you.

[Buckwheet]

That is a very good point.

However, I will say that many broadband companies are competing on the level of overall speed. Take that away and get them on the same page, and users who use more, will begin to have to pay more. The cable companies and DSL companies advertise a huge speed and are oversubscribing their lines. They count on the fact that most of the people paying XX per month are letting their lines sit dormant. However with the increasing amount of media on the net, they are finding they are unable to keep up, and we as consumers are used to super speeds and will accept nothing less, and we don't want to pay for it.

There is nothing currently in place to prevent the tier of services already. I can pay 3 different prices on the cable modem I have for higher speeds as it stands now. They could easily decide to drop the overal speeds down to 256k like some DSL providers have or even 128k to compete with ISDN and make that their basic thing. So instead of charging you more to stream video or download large files, they would just be charging you more per month for faster access to the stuff. It is scary because there is a lot of pressure from MPAA and RIAA to limit the amount of data people can send over broadband networks instead of tiering. There are countries right now where you get 100mbit down and 10mbit up but you can only send a certain amount of data over the network just like regular web hosting, and if you go over the amount of transfer you pay huge fees.

[HarmNone]

Thanks for the information, Buckwheet. It gives one a more in-depth view of what's actually happening throughout this complex system. Food for thought. :)

[Apotheosis]

Thanks Buckwheet. I appreciate the information.

[Buckwheet]

You are welcome. I am glad I can offer the information on what it is that the phone companies like mine are asking for.

The basic premis is that if Vonage can be sold in every state. Then my company should be able to explore that playing field as well. We should be able to price our products and services in a competitive manner because in one of the most recent surveys done, people prefer all their communication services to be provided by one entity.

If we can get you to have high speed internet, wireless, voip, and satelite TV, which by the way everyone of those is an unregulated product market that we are unable to enter outside of our 14 state region, we want to do it.

One thing to also keep in mind when you talk about how bad the phone company is, is that everyone pays fees to support the phone company to provide copper services in the middle of nowhere USA, like Wyoming and the Dakotas. Last time I cheked you don't pay those fees to Vonage to assist in the costs of the equipment that the phone companies put out there. Vonage doesn't pay us the millions of dollars it takes to get the infastructure out to consumers for the DSL services, where we would be anticipating local and high speed internet. They don't pay us for the infastructure that consumers demand, and as soon as we get it out there we start loosing access lines because people are going with Vonage. It makes my company that much more unwilling to expand our services because why spend millions helping a compeitor when you can sit around on what you have and loose them anyway? While I can agree that everyone wants to save money, sometimes cheaper is better then free. If the phone companies are unable to adapt to the desires of the consumers based on regulation and billions of dollars in fees to the local PUCs you will continue to see mega mergers like SBC and AT&T. This leads to even further loss of choice for the consumer, higher chance of restricted services, and I wouldn't be surprised if someone tries to ban VoIP in the near future from their networks.

The baby bells are getting back together slowly because thats what they have to do to survive.

[Apotheosis]

Well, that's a chicken/egg argument, or something along those lines, Buckwheet.

Think about WHY people were leaving for VOIP. It isn't always cost. Customer service (or lack thereof) plays a big role. No advertising and you fall out of the customer's mind, and maintain that distant goliath image. It's true

[Jazuela]

What does internet neutrality have to do with TELEPHONE long distance calls? I don't need to be logged on the internet to pick up the phone and dial a phone number. That's why I was saying it doesn't affect me. Because - I use a phone to make my phone calls. I use the internet to use the internet. Unless they stop providing telephone services and replace them entirely with VoIP, well then I'll have problems.

As for all that other stuff with all those different charges and tiers, it wouldn't affect me all that much. I rarely download anything, and because I don't have sound turned on, I don't ever need to access sound files or movies with sound on the internet. I don't play graphics games, except once in awhile at the mall if I have a couple extra quarters weighing down my purse and feel goofy that day.

I agree with Buckwheet. It's an issue, sure. But it's been blown out of proportion by extremists who exaggerate the truth and use "potential" problems to drive home "ultimate" conclusions that aren't proven to even exist. The extremists make some people gasp and groan and widen their eyes with horror. They make everyone else roll their eyes and pooh-pooh the entire situation, and feed the spin doctors who say "See? We're not like that, and our *actual facts* can prove that everything those extremists say is categorically false." It's a no-win situation, when people panic over things that haven't yet happened.

Neutrality is an issue that needs to be further examined by people in the industry. But it isn't something to get all riled up about and grab your AK-47 and start shooting CEOs over.

[Tsa`ah]

What does internet neutrality have to do with TELEPHONE long distance calls? I don't need to be logged on the internet to pick up the phone and dial a phone number. That's why I was saying it doesn't affect me. Because - I use a phone to make my phone calls. I use the internet to use the internet. Unless they stop providing telephone services and replace them entirely with VoIP, well then I'll have problems.

:wtf:

Must remain calm ... :banghead: .... deep breaths .... :banghead: .... must not respond .... :banghead: .... concussion via keyboard is a potential option ....

Fuck it.

Ok, what exactly did you NOT understand other than EVERY DAMN WORD POSTED?

YOU, a telecommunication consumer, enjoy not paying hefty or any long distance fees BECAUSE OF NEUTRALITY! The internet has not been around that long, but if you want to dig and compare rates from pre-internet to post-internet you will find that rates have fallen drastically. Why you may ask? Because people can communicate over the internet much cheaper than you local phone service provider can/could offer, and faster than the USPS can deliver. It was e-mail and chat clients at first, then pier to pier voice chat clients ... that are now standard in any text chat client, then it was voice over.

How does your local and long distance company compete? How do they maintain their customer base? They LOWER THE FUCKING RATES! That, in case you missed it the first time I responded to you, is why neutrality has an affect on you. If neutrality goes, so does your free long distance, so does your unlimited local, so do all the standard options that used to be separate charges.


As for all that other stuff with all those different charges and tiers, it wouldn't affect me all that much. I rarely download anything, and because I don't have sound turned on, I don't ever need to access sound files or movies with sound on the internet. I don't play graphics games, except once in awhile at the mall if I have a couple extra quarters weighing down my purse and feel goofy that day.

You still don't get it. You make use of your bandwidth ... you are affected. People that don't even use the internet ... will be affected.


I agree with Buckwheet. It's an issue, sure. But it's been blown out of proportion by extremists who exaggerate the truth and use "potential" problems to drive home "ultimate" conclusions that aren't proven to even exist. The extremists make some people gasp and groan and widen their eyes with horror. They make everyone else roll their eyes and pooh-pooh the entire situation, and feed the spin doctors who say "See? We're not like that, and our *actual facts* can prove that everything those extremists say is categorically false." It's a no-win situation, when people panic over things that haven't yet happened.[quote]

I think Buck's point was more about his industry being regulated while the competition isn't. The competition being services you can use on networks that must observe some sort of neutrality.

Pretty much what's good for the goose is good for the gander.

The answer is not killing neutrality, that would lead to a monopoly scenario. That leads to YOU going back to pre-internet type phone usage charges.

I have a phone line running to my house and it gets no use. I don't pay the provider a dime. I don't pay the intra or inter state taxes. I don't pay a line maintenance fee ... I just refuse to fork over my cash to a heavily regulated, bogus fee laden, tax burdened industry. My cell phone service is cheaper than a phone bill without long distance charges. My broadband cable service is cheaper than a phone bill, and that's after some heavy price reduction due to internet communication.

When you punt neutrality, that lets my cable provider move in and say "you can only use our voice over and it's going to cost you 20 dollars more a month than the price we previously offered". That leads to a hike in my monthly bill because I utilize over half the bandwidth I pay for.

[quote]Neutrality is an issue that needs to be further examined by people in the industry. But it isn't something to get all riled up about and grab your AK-47 and start shooting CEOs over.

You don't grab a rifle for CEOs, you grab a rope, torch, and a corn cob to return the favor.

Despite what you may think, neutrality affects your pocket book, it has since the early 90s.

[Buckwheet]

Well, that's a chicken/egg argument, or something along those lines, Buckwheet.

Think about WHY people were leaving for VOIP. It isn't always cost. Customer service (or lack thereof) plays a big role. No advertising and you fall out of the customer's mind, and maintain that distant goliath image. It's true

You are right its not always cost, but our exit survey are returning 87% leave rate because its cheaper, other factors are its the "new" way to to do it and you don't have to pay the big bad monopoly. I will tell you that I work with high end data clients primarily. This is customers with thousands of dollars spent each month on communications.

When one of them tells me Vonage or whoever can get me this service for half the price, I let them leave without even mentioning the possible downsides to their decision. You would probably be surprised at the number of people who call me back in 4-6 months time and want me to hook them back up, for free of course...

I get the ability to tell them no. It sounds harsh, but I really enjoy that.

In response to Tsa.

I think your predictions are a little off. The prices for long distance at my phone company just went up, not down, and we are getting people signing up in droves for it. Granted I am in the business area, so I am not 100% familar with home services, but when you get long distance rates for 1-2 cents per minute based on volume I really don't see that much of a difference between the voip rates and the phone company rates.

I will digress about long distance, because I highly doubt that net neutrality will cause such a pandemic as you have described. With all the long distance carriers out there, and able to sell their services in all states, they would still compete with eachother. Yes you might have to pay something for long distance. However in my view when a VoiP person calls a regular phone line person long distance and there is no charge, it just sounds silly to me to expect that. There a hundres of jobs and thousands of dollars of switching equipment that are being used for you to make that call. Why shouldn't you pay for that?

I don't think someone would expect to mail a letter for 39 cents that is a 700 page document. Just like people don't expect to pay $5 for gas but be able to get 4 gallons any more.

To your point about not paying for the copper assigned to your home, that is one of the sticking points I have. We should be able to ignore you as a customer and not maintain your copper pair in the box down the street. We should be able to then unplug you and not have to worry about it. But we can't. So we actually have to spend money on a someone who is giving us nothing in return, because we are mandated to do that. Then problem is that every state we operate in requires us to provide facilities for 1 phone line per home, and it some it requires us to provide 2. I think you can imagine the cost of us dropping all that into the ground only to get 50% of the stuff we paid for used.

In conclusion, I feel VoIP is hurting phone companies in the current form it is allowed to be distributed. Everyone knows that currently VoIP is a loophole in the telecommunications system because it uses the internet. Therefore it can be classified as non-voice traffic, and is considered just the trasmission of data packets.

I think, that while Net Neutrality in its current form is bogus, I feel many of the minor points are more valid then the major points, and that its time to stop cable companies, resllers of the phone company and VoIP providers from getting away with loopholes. Especially the loopholes that cost the phone companies money with no possible way for a gain. Such as being forced to resell lines to companies like Vonage at a price lower then our cost.

[Apotheosis]

I just think that fiber and data companies should fall into a category where they're forced to operate as a non-profit.

[Buckwheet]

June 29, 2006


Qwest-supported reform legislation took another step forward yesterday when the U.S. Senate Commerce Committee passed the Communications, Consumers’ Choice and Broadband Deployment Act of 2006. This bill, which will go before the full Senate in weeks to come, calls for streamlining the way local cable TV franchises are negotiated. And that would help companies like Qwest compete with the cable giants on a more equitable basis.


"This legislation will speed competition in the video services market and give consumers a choice in television and video programming," said Gary Lytle, Qwest vice president-federal relations. "Qwest is pleased the committee has moved away from over-regulation of high-speed broadband services and instead is providing for an open and fully competitive marketplace."


This bill, along with similar legislation passed by the House of Representatives, "will allow new and innovative approaches for the fast delivery of content," Gary added. "The Internet always has been a test bed for free market principles, and this legislation recognizes that important role must continue to benefit the growth of the digital economy."


Representatives overwhelmingly passed the House bill -- the COPE (Communications Opportunity, Promotion and Enhancement) Act.

Link to the full act:
http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/z?c109:s.2686:

Links to various descriptions:
http://www.freepress.net/congress/billinfo.php?id=173
http://www.hearusnow.org/tvradiocable/35/
http://www.reclaimthemedia.org/stories.php?story=06/05/06/1158111

[Back]

It sounds to me like a whole new market has been created and the baby bells don’t want competition. Some innovators of a new market come along and the telecommunications industry gets upset because they didn’t broaden their scope for the future? Its grandfathered capitalism.

If there is any restriction, or even the possibility of it, put on the access I already enjoy now I’m absolutely for net neutrality.

[Buckwheet]

It sounds to me like a whole new market has been created and the baby bells don’t want competition. Some innovators of a new market come along and the telecommunications industry gets upset because they didn’t broaden their scope for the future? Its grandfathered capitalism.

If there is any restriction, or even the possibility of it, put on the access I already enjoy now I’m absolutely for net neutrality.

No, thats not it at all. We want a level playing field.

[Back]

Lets say you know skillsets 1, 2 and 3. There are very few people around who know all three so you live quite comfortably.

Then skillsets 4, 5 and 6 come along. They don’t make as much as yours, so you are still in the happy minority and don’t bother picking them up.

A little while later, you realize that 4, 5 and 6 ARE making money, a lot of money. Now you want those skillsets, but there are too many other people with them that have gotten a big head start on you. What are you going to do?

You STFU and learn those skillsets instead of crying to big government about it because you didn’t take the initiative. You are already rich from 1, 2, and 3 anyway so don’t expect much sympathy from everyone else.

Or you line the pockets of policy makers with your hard earned money so they will make policy in favor of you.

[Apotheosis]

Backlash: 1, Buckwheet: 0

[Apotheosis]

It's not dead in the senate yet. E-mail senators, support neutrality. Utilities, and I believe high-speed internet should and will be seen as one, should be regulated to the point of 0 to slim profit.

Rewards/incentives should come from innovation without gouging customers and internet users.

[Celephais]

Unfortunatly you forgot that while you were using skillsets 1,2,3 the government told you how to use them, and mandating certain qualities in that skillset. The skillsets 4,5,6 require that 1,2,3 follow those mandated rules, if you were to suddenly stop performing your skillsets and switch over to 4,5,6 like everyone else, nothing would work.

I hate the whining of the phone companies too, I don't want restrictions or monopolies, I just think it's unrealistic to force them to maintain a network for other businesses to exploit in a manner that reduces the profitablity of the first business.

Lets say you write and publish books, neat little skillset you've got there... making profits, etc... but me, I just bought a copy machine, how do you like that skillset? Obviously it's not fair for me to go around copying your books and stealing your customers.

Personally, I don't think networks should be owned or maintained by a profit seeking company, it's like if our roads were built by companies and they charged us to use the roads.

[Buckwheet]

Your post makes no sense Backlash.

We have VoiP and have had it for almost as long as Vonage has been out. Granted they are targeting home accounts while ours was for business at the time.

My point being that we offer the same product, VoIP. Vonage can sell it in all 50 states and be responsible to nobody.

We can only sell it in 14 and we have to face millions of dollars of fines, and millions of dollars in costs because of the PUCs. We have to lease lines to them below our cost, and we have to maintain copper lines to homes that use cable internet and VoIP so our copper sits there just costing us money.

There is a phone number that rings directly into the Attorney General in the state of MN to complain about our company due to the previous CEO, who is on trial for his crimes, and it records the complaints.

Per the legal agreement that we had to agree to, each time a complaint is made we are asessed a $500 fine. The information you need to provide is your name, address phone number so they can verify that you have our service. In the case of VoIP even though it is not a service in which the PUC regulates at this time, if someone has a dropped call and gets this number, oh look $500 fine. It happens in the millions per year.

We get fined if we don't answer the phone call in enough time, we get fined if you say "I want 7m DSL" and we don't advise you that you have other options, we get fined if we talk about a competitor with a customer by name. You name it I bet we can get fined for it.

I doubt that if you called Vonage and asked them, " Why should I go with you and not XYZ phone company?" they would give a whole host of reasons and nothing will happen to them. We do that? Major fines.

I don't see how that is reasonable.

By the way, I didn't know this was some sort of competition where we are keeping score. I am just telling you that those people who are writing doomsday scenarios are not the best people to listen to. Not that you need to listen to me, but what I have told you is factual, not conjecture.

[Apotheosis]

Your post makes no sense Backlash.

We have VoiP and have had it for almost as long as Vonage has been out. Granted they are targeting home accounts while ours was for business at the time.

My point being that we offer the same product, VoIP. Vonage can sell it in all 50 states and be responsible to nobody.


First of all, I apologize for the grandstanding, that was childish and immature.

Regarding the above quote: that can still be done without barring neutrality. I believe that's an entirely seperate issue.

[Back]

Your post makes no sense Backlash.

We have VoiP and have had it for almost as long as Vonage has been out. Granted they are targeting home accounts while ours was for business at the time.

My point being that we offer the same product, VoIP. Vonage can sell it in all 50 states and be responsible to nobody.

We can only sell it in 14 and we have to face millions of dollars of fines, and millions of dollars in costs because of the PUCs. We have to lease lines to them below our cost, and we have to maintain copper lines to homes that use cable internet and VoIP so our copper sits there just costing us money.

First, thanks for your offerings here in this thread. They’ve helped me understand the situation a great deal more than I thought I had.

Its a tricky affair, no doubt. I’m no expert on how it all works, this history of telecommunications and what they’ve already been through. I’m looking at this purely from the perspective of a consumer and internet enthusiast.

About your point with Vonage... if I’m not mistaken, they offer far fewer services, and don’t have the same resources, than say AT&T for example. If they did, I could see your point. They (Vonage) are in a new marketplace and have shifted with the paradigm. Shouldn’t they be rewarded for being intuitive, intelligent and savvy enough to break into this new market that offers consumers new cheaper services? Not having Net Neutrality seems to punish innovation like they have shown.

About the copper, well, thats how it goes. Technology advances, innovation creates new opportunities that render older methods obsolete. Its just the way things work. I was going to use the example of the 8-track vs the cassette tape. Something better, faster, stronger and cheaper comes along... so sorry... but then I thought in terms of telecommunications and the telegraph. How far we have come! Its where the Bells originated and they are still around today having been on top of the market all this time for the most part.

I do not know all the ins and outs of the history of whats happened to the Bells but it seems like they’ve weathered pretty well considering where they have come from.


Lets say you write and publish books, neat little skillset you've got there... making profits, etc... but me, I just bought a copy machine, how do you like that skillset? Obviously it's not fair for me to go around copying your books and stealing your customers.

I get where you are coming from with this except this analogy is just a bit off and more about intellectual property than anything else. I find it particularly interesting to me as a graphic designer though... I wonder how many scribes got pissed at Guttenburg for inventing a press that could stamp out hundreds of bibles in the time it took to hand make just one?

[Buckwheet]

First of all, I apologize for the grandstanding, that was childish and immature.

Regarding the above quote: that can still be done without barring neutrality. I believe that's an entirely seperate issue.

You are right that it can be done without barring neutrality, and thats what I want. Right now many people are saying the VoIP is a threat. Which makes sense, my company does not view it as a threat if we were able to offer it in the exact same manner as Vonage does. However, going on the idea that it is a threat I can certainly see why people feel the bells will do everything they can to limit the services.

I agree with you that the problems are being blurred. They are being smashed into one big ball and they just should not be.

On one hand there should be voice traffic, make it a level playing field.

One the second hand there should be legit data which should continue to traverse the internet without any additional blockages and limitations, and once that is accomplished begin to remove the blocks and limitations that are currently in place.

As far as what Vonage offers, they actual are able to offer services we can't such as phone numbers in Canada and other countries. Toll free services to residences. Numbers in other states that ring your line so your family doesn't pay long distance. I would say the offerings based on a straight comparison are equal.