More on Vonage service disruptions...

Wed Mar 2 18:20:27 UTC 2005

At 09:46 AM 3/2/2005, you wrote:

>advancedIPpipeline is running another article this morning
>in their series of articles covering the Vonage service
>disruptions that [allegedly] invlove an ISP "port blocking"
>SIP connectitity between Vonage's client equipment and
>Vonage's servers. While there is a bit more decriptive
>detail in this article involving the nature of the service
>interruptions, Vonage's CEO, Jeffrey Citron, is trying
>to make a [in my opinion] weak argument that this type
>of traffic blocking is akin to censorship.

Actually, anticompetitive, and restraint-of-trade come in as better 
arguments. They go along with blocking port 587/110, keeping users from 
getting at legitimate, well-run remote mail servers. The end user paid for 
packet service, and the Internet generally permits any protocol to be run. 
ISPs legitimately block traffic at various protocol levels to deal with 
security and abuse matters. That's unlikely with VOIP.

Blocking for dealing with security issues is one matter. Blocking to 
purposely harm competition is another, and will indeed open a can of worms 
if it persists. 