US slaps fine on company blocking VoIP

Sat Mar 5 06:26:22 UTC 2005

On 3/5/2005 12:02 AM, John Levine wrote:
>>>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.
  ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

Thanks for proving my point.

Regulating as-is behavior is not feasible, ergo regulation means loss of
features or overhauled network(s), which is a bit unreasonable given where
we are in the lifecycle.

-- 
Eric A. Hall                                        http://www.ehsco.com/
Internet Core Protocols          http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/coreprot/