TELECOM Digest OnLine - Sorted: Re: Vonage Complaining Of VoIP 'Blocking'

Re: Vonage Complaining Of VoIP 'Blocking'

Tony P. (kd1s@nospamplease.cox.reallynospam.net)
Tue, 15 Feb 2005 17:27:15 -0500

In article <telecom24.68.9@telecom-digest.org>, paul@timmins.net says:

> On Mon, 2005-02-14 at 17:07 -0500, Mike O'Connor wrote:

>>> Not concerned yet? Well consider this - suppose your web page was
>>> hosted on a particular ISP, and suddenly one of the large ISPs took a
>>> notion to start blocking access to web sites hosted on selected
>>> competitive ISPs. Of course, their solution would be to open an
>>> account with them and move your web site to their servers. Now what
>>> happens when two or more ISPs do this? Pretty soon the entire
>>> Internet as we know it falls apart, and I don't think I'm being overly
>>> dramatic in saying that - I have seen just too many examples of
>>> corporate greed destroying the good things of life to think that it
>>> could not happen that way.

>> Most ISPs of reasonable size have figured out that it's not worth it
>> to block or deny peering with other providers of reasonable size (of
>> course there may be quibbling at the margins). The result of blocking
>> is too much grief with customers, who don't care that much about the
>> underlying transporter of bits. Blocking = less bits = less money, in
>> the general sense. In the 21st century, it's been legal issues that
>> have resulted in "stupid acts of site blocking" moreso than anything:

> That's what gets me. Last I remember, to qualify as a common carrier, an
> ISP isn't allowed to exact any sort of traffic control beyond what is
> necessary to maintain the stability of the network. Anything more and it
> could be seen as having the ability to control its content, and would be
> vicariously liable for crimes committed over its infrastructure and
> services.

> Isn't that still the case?

Yep, and by those rules Cox shouldn't be considered a common carrier
any longer. They actually teach parents how to implement filters on
web sites, etc. via Cox provided servers.

[TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I can tell you that Southwestern Bell
has always claimed 'common carrier status' on their DSL service as
a way to avoid any/all spam filtering on user's mailboxes. They won't
even sort perceived spam into a separate spam box as CableOne does.
It just all goes into your mailbox -- all several hundred pieces of
it daily. How you want to sort it is your business. Just call this
one of my several minor complaints with SBC, which is why I dumped
them out of my house totally. PAT]

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