> The concept of "freedom of speech" is that the _govt_ can't stop you
> from speaking. It does not mean that someone has to provide you with the
> soapbox or bullhorn from which to speak. When it comes to that, you're
> on your own.
I totally agree with this. But remember the courts do as they
please. A case in point. A very religious married couple in Ann Arbor,
Michigan owned a apartment building. Because of their religious
beliefs, chose not to rent to un-married persons. Now this was private
property and their religious beliefs told them not to, but the courts
ruled that they were in violation of the law. So in essence the court
said, your right to do as you wish with you private property and to
follow your religious teaching do not exists. What takes precedent,
the Constitution or laws made by Congress? I was taught that nothing
supersedes the Constitution yet the courts do it all the time.
> As somene else here pointed out, the VOIP industry had a big
> celebration when it was recently determined that they're not under
> regulation -- they don't have any of the burdens the traditional phone
> companies have which saves them a heck of a lot of money and
> aggravation. But now the VOIP people want to impose those very same
> regulations on others. Seems rather unfair to me.
See this a misconception that the VoIP providers do not have to follow
some regulations. What they want to insure is that they do not have to
collect a bunch of crap taxes and fees per line. In my opinion none of
the companies should be forced to do this. But these providers do pay
into these. For the lines that they install to terminate to they are
paying E911, sales tax and into the universal service fund. Just not
for the customer access side. Why? because the law requires these fees
based on a telephone line, not access to making telephone calls.
> Someone asked the telecom director of my employer while we don't "save
> money and use VOIP". The director replied
> emphatically that the Internet is NOT free -- having it requires routers
> and servers and networking and all of that comes at a cost. Adding VOIP
> on an enterprise-wide basis would add quite a load said installation and
> increase its cost.
Your telecom director is correct and wrong. Yes, it cost money for the
internet access, but less then having the telephone lines. The cost to
set this up in a business environment is very high. The Cisco
telephones alone cost about $150.00 each from what I understand. Then
of course the routers and other items cost. For business they have to
decide the payback. If they are only being billed a few hundred
dollars a month the hardware cost alone could make it unwise. But if
you company is being bill a few thousand a month I would recommend
that it be looked at. If the payback is less then a year or two they
should go with VoIP. I would even go as far as to say, borrow to do
it.
> Right now VOIP is a novelty, but if and when a lot of people start
> using it I suspect the bandwidth to carry all that chatter will be
> consequential and drive up ISP costs.
VoIP maybe a novelty to you, but for my employer it is what we are
doing. Billions of minuets per month are going across our VoIP network
and we are adding more everyday. So much so that we have removed good
old fashion TDM switches and plan to have them all gone as soon as we
can. VoIP is no more a novelty today then the internet. There are some
that have no access or desire for the internet and see it as a
novelty, the opposite is true for VoIP. Within the next 5 to 10 years,
other then the slow pokes at the LECs no one will have TDM switches in
their networks.
Our Esteemed Moderator posted:
> But Lisa, see the two earlier messages in this issue on this topic
> (Jack Decker and Danny Burstein). It would appear the 'government'
> in the form of the FCC *did* get involved in this 'censorship' case,
> and after a friendly chat and a fine, the ISP had a change of
> attitude. And unlike at your place of employment, where someone else
> is paying the bill, here we have a public service where presumably
> the customers are paying the bill for the type of service they wish
> to receive.
Did you notice as well, Pat that all along we have been talking about a
ISP doing this. It wasn't, it was a regulated telephone company that did
it. So all the brew-ha-ha about ISPs wanting freedom from regulation had
nothing to do with it after all.
Chip Cryderman
Charles Cryderman (