Search Results for \"network neutrality\"
The Bill of Rights trumps Net Newt
In his recent post ripping the purported conflict of interest that exists among conservative lobbies--gun owners and big business--who ostensibly support AND oppose legislated network neutrality, Russell Shaw has demonstrated one of the fallacies of the pro-net-neutrality crowd: misplaced priorities. I support some form of network neutrality measures, but the old addage "let's not get carried away" certainly applies. Take a look at Russ's writing and see what you think: Seems like almost all the 11 Senators who voted against net neutrality are of a political stripe, and party, accurately perceived as being sensitive to the wishes of gun owners and conservative Christians.
So why didn't this big tent work? Easy. Because if I am a conservative Senator who is reflexively anti-regulation and pro-big business (i.e. carrier duopolists) while being say, pro-life and pro-gun, I know that gun owners and Christian Coalition members are not going to vote for my opponent out of disappointment I didn't ...
VoIP banned in Verizon's fine print
If you're an EVDO user, than you've got the best non-hotspot cell-carrier data access money can buy, in the USA for that
matter. But did you know that Verizon prohibits you from using your own voice applications over the network?
Speaking of network neutrality, Rich Tehrani has the deets detailing this wicked prohibition on VoIP from Verizon's end
user acceptabe use agreement for the EVDO service in his blog. ...
VoIP Think Tank #2 Podcast Online
Andy Abramson, Ken Camp, Martin Geddes, Alec Saunders, Dameon Welch Abernathy and myself had a great chat yesterday, and Ken put the podcast on iTunes. Go check it out! Here's what we blabbed about: - The conundrum of network neutrality. Lots of questions, lots of ideas, and almost no answers. Seems to be par for the course at this point. - Enterprise attitudes toward unified communications. Why are companies still dissing VoIP? - The media para-marketing hype surrounding "Spit" and other almost-threats to VoIP. ...
What neutrality loses in government, it will regain in free market.
The net neutrality amendment offered as a part of a House committee's bill reforming the FCC's role in
telecommunications struck out before it had a chance to hit the House floor, effectively giving large network carriers
like AT&T rise to penalize or otherwise impede the traffic of content providers whose traffic crosses their
network. Man, that was a long sentence. Here's my take. The job of the network is to carry
content. But as more and more monolithic applications--like television and telephony--become content plays
themselves, the big carriers are sweating a bit. These are areas of their expertise. Before telephony could even
be considered content, it was essentially dominated by the network carriers, and the only purpose of the network was
telephony. With the advent of realtime Internet communications, including voice and video systems, it seems
that the big carriers no longer want to carry all content--at least not in a manner that provides the utmost quality to
the ...
What's up, Congress?
Following Jeff Pulver's outstanding coverage of
yesterday's congressional wrangling over the issue of net neutrality (of which this quip is a real gem): Mr. Markey gave a wonderful opening statement championing Net Neutrality. He also pelted the witnesses throughout the
day with brilliant, and pointed, questions, underscoring the need for a policy framework to protect the embryonic, and
yet-to-be-conceived, Internet applications, products, technologies and services. It is great to see him in action
fighting for competition and the open Internet. For those of you familiar with Dr. Seuss (and our recently-revealed
fondness for the late Doctor), I would have to single out Mr. Markey as “The Lorax” of the
largely-voiceless, undoubtedly under-represented, would-be Internet innovators and enthusiasts. InfoWorld has posted their
report. Here's a snippet:
Several lawmakers,
consumer groups, and Internet companies told a House of Representatives subcommittee that the so-called "net
neutrality" ...
In the End, Net Neutrality Will Win
Listen BellSouth: "The road to failure is paved with pride, but the road to success is lined with
humility." The application layer and the network layer don't live next door to each other on the
traditional network model, and apparently application vendors and network carriers don't feel the love in real life,
either. BellSouth has decided that charging a premium for third-party data crossing its network is good business. I
couldn't disagree more, and here are several points I want to make: 1. After all the MSOs and telcos are
engaged in premium fees leverages against third parties, some scrappy network carrier will realize that he can beat
them all by simply practicing neutrality. The mere act of being neutral will heap so much business upon that
scrappy competitor that the Bells and Comcasts of the world will see their access customers leaving in droves.
2. Charging a premium "by the bit" to third-parties is just the long distance billing story read
a different way. The ...
Telco TV? Forgive me if I'm not quivering
This afternoon over lunch, I saw television advertisement today on the cable news channel purporting the virtues of
consumer choice in television viewing. The main thrust of the commercial was to support lobbying currently underway
that will allow phone companies (yup--Verizon and AT&T) to sell television services via fiber, and even via IP. My
first thought was, "oh that sounds great--a la cart TV programming, and a choice in who I receive it from?
Yay!" But then the commercial's announcer went on to say how "increased competition" in
television distribution will make television better for consumers. This is when the hypocrisy of the telcos bubbled up
from the back of my brain, and I immediately felt guilty for ever having a positive thought about telco TV and this
ad. I reminded myself why I resent the phone company. The reason for the guilt is this: the very same
regulatory infrastructure that keeps the telcos out of the TV business today--a set of rules this lobbying group ...
Mark Cuban's 'fast lane' is a toll without a need
We all basically agree that the Internet needs to be content-neutral transport for data packets. So why are
once-brilliant luminaries like Mark Cuban are starting to sound like tired old industry fatcats such as BellSouth's crusty CEO? The almighty buck. My bandwidth needs are more important than yours, as I stand to gain from gaining entrance into
the fast lane. Of course, I am going to make you, my customer, pay the toll for that entrance.
Neutrality is
necessary or the Internet fails to be what the Internet IS. Plus, if you buy Cuban's argument, you have to
believe that the Internet doesn't have enough bandwidth to around. And we know that reasoning just doesn't work. ...
Mark Cuban, read this
Rich makes another very great point about how store-and-forward caching technology could blow a hole in the "two
tier internet is needed for IPTV" argument. Not sure if it's really game over for the LECs on the
neutrality debate, as Rich says, but as usual, the TMC kingpin makes a hella point. ...
Ira Flatow is a very smart guy
I appeared on Science Friday on NPR to talk shop with Ira Flatow about voice over IP. The twenty-minute podcast version is available here. Ira demonstrated that he really knows about VoIP--and this was fantastic. The media needs to get with the program. Just the other day, one of the local news programs was outright bashing VoIP telephony services in what sounded like a 3-minute commercial for the local Bell operator. So, kudos to NPR and Ira for treating the issue with fairness. Also, check out the excellent discussion on Net Neutrality that preceded my appearance on the program. ...
Union Telecom Workers, please listen
[A letter I wrote to the editors of the local newspaper, in response to several stories lamenting the loss of local
telecom jobs.] Hi Editors [of the Chronicle-Telegram in Elyria,
OH]: You recently reported that 35 of the 800 layoffs undertaken by CenturyTel would be happening in
Lorain, OH. This is an obvious disappointment to those of us living in the western Cleveland suburbs. But, if you
understand the current shifts in the telecom industry, these layoffs aren't really a surprise. In fact, it is clear that
lots more shakeups and layoffs at "Ma Bell" are coming. The people of Lorain County should
understand why Century is struggling, instead of merely reading Sherrod Brown's labor-lobby talking points on the
matter. The reason for these layoffs is that CenturyTel and other local dialtone carriers are trying to remain
competitive in a consumer-friendly market that demands a leaner telecom industry. The deregulation that occured with
the Telcom Act of '96 was the beginning of a much more ...
Putting a finer point on net neutrality argument
As I argued this week, the
concept of net neutrality will ultimately win out over telecom carriers who have expressed a desire to charge a premium
for "better bandwidth". But Russell Shaw puts a finer point on it. He thinks that better compression
technologies mayplay a key role in upping the ante against the carriers' selfish, big-headed thinking. The effect
of such technologies would be that even the slow lane will be "good enough" for high quality apps. Russ
cites Packet8 video as his example. But he also brings up the point that the big carriers haven't pulled out
everything in their bag of tricks to beat back the likes of Packet8. Check out the article. ...
2-tiered backbone? No, 2-tiered lastmile
Russ posted a probing blog about how Shaw Cable is attempting
to screw our Canadian friends by charging $10 per month to institute a quality of service provision. My question is
this. If Shaw makes most of their money by slinging access lines and then charging a monthly fee to keep the current
flowing on those lines (which they do), why doesn't competition dictate that Shaw just throw in the QoS as a standard
feature? I know the answer, and it sucks: because Shaw has their own finger in the voice pie, and they want to
leverage the last mile to screw Vonage. Plain and simple. Good old poli-business. Now, the issue of
net neutrality looks like a last-mile issue, not a trans-internet issue. ...
Networking consultant job hunting
I thought I would let you know about an associate of mine who has recently completed a major consulting engagement and
is on the lookout for a new position in the IP networking industry. He's one of the best executive-level
networking consultants and system engineers I know, so, if you know of somebody who may be interested in this type of
talent, shoot me a line at ted [-at-] macvoip.com. ...
Advice for keeping converged networks secure
And it's good advice, at that. TMC offers an article outlining several general steps you can take to secure
the VoIP network. These are practical guidelines:
- Protect communications flow at every level of a multivendor network
- Use open rather than proprietary solutions (Hello, Cisco!)
- Trust vendors that take a holistic approach to security and collaborate with the rest of the industry
Check it out at the link below. ...
