US slaps fine on company blocking VoIP

Mon Mar 7 17:05:58 UTC 2005

On Mon, 7 Mar 2005, Adi Linden wrote:

>> If VOIP doesn't run on your network because you've oversold your capacity,
>> no amount of QoS is going to put the quality back into your service.
>> People will find better ISPs. If you deliberately set QoS to favor your
>> services over a competitor, whom your customers are also paying for
>> service, you'll be staring down prosecutors, at some point. It's
>> anti-competitive behavior, as you're taking deliberate actions to degrade
>> the service of a competitor, simply because you can.
>
> Let's say I sell a premium VoIP offering for an additional fee on my
> network. I apply QoS to deliver my VoIP offering to my customers but as a
> result all other VoIP service is literally useless during heavy use
> times you'd consider this anti-competitive behavior?

Applying QoS to your VOIP traffic at the expense of *all* other traffic 
would be edging against a gray area. Applying QoS to competitive VOIP 
traffic specifically to improve the quality of your service at the expense 
of theirs is likely to be a problem. Again, I am not a lawyer. I would 
strongly suggest consulting one if this is a serious concern.

The Internet is not regulated because operators tend to be effective at 
self policing. Engaging in these kinds of practices is asking for 
regulation.

- billn