US slaps fine on company blocking VoIP

John Levine johnl at iecc.com
Sat Mar 5 05:02:22 UTC 2005


>> Vonage has fought tooth and nail to *not* be a regulated entity.
>
>It's too early in the technology life-cycle for them to be treated that
>way. I mean, you can get a phone number anywhere the service provider has
>a pop, and if you want to feed that into existing 911 service systems
>you've got a lot of mapping issues to deal with, probably to the point
>where it's not economically feasible

Packet8 offers E-911 on their VoIP product right now, for a $1.50/mo
surcharge which is not out of line with the POTS E-911 charge.  You
have to tell them where you live, and your phone number has to be
local to your location.  Looks pretty feasible to me.

First the VoIP crowd says that it's an unstoppable juggernaut with
such compelling technical and economic advantages that it will
inevitably leave all of that old fashioned POTS telephony as road
kill.

Then in the next breath they're telling us that VoIP is such a frail,
delicate hothouse flower that the merest chilly breath of regulation
or E911 or USF or any of the other costs that real phones are subject
to would make it crumple and die on the vine.

I realize that if I were in the VoIP business, I'd be spouting that
nonsense, too.  What I don't undertand is why everyone else seems to
believe it.  VoIP is mostly a regulatory arbitrage play, not a
technological miracle.

Regards,
John Levine, johnl at iecc.com, Primary Perpetrator of "The Internet for Dummies",
Information Superhighwayman wanna-be, http://www.johnlevine.com, Mayor
"More Wiener schnitzel, please", said Tom, revealingly.




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