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Cable Companies: We'll Kill VoIP

dartworth

dartworth

Lifer
Cable companies in the U.S. and Canada may be moving to squash one of the biggest threats to their future expansion --- VoIP. A Canadian cable company is already charging customers a premium for using competing VoIP products, and users are complaining that Comcast is purposely degrading the quality of Vonage connections.

Canada's Shaw Communications offers its own VoIP service, and it charges anyone who uses a competing service a $10 "packet prioritization" fee for Quality of Service enhancements. To many, including me, this seems clearly targeted at squashing competition.

In response, Vonage has filed a complaint with the Canadian Radio and Television Commission. The commission is still considering the complaint. You can bet that U.S. cable providers are watching this one closely.

But there are some who believe that the U.S. cable giant Comcast is already taking action against VoIP competition, albeit in an underhanded way.

On the independent Vonage VoIP Forum (not associated with Vonage), countless people have complained that Comcast is purposely degrading the quality of their VoIP connections in order to steal customers for its VoIP service.

Comcast denies this, of course.

I don't know the truth of the allegation. But I do know that what Shaw is doing in Canada is wrong, and that if it gets away with it, cable companies may pursue an all-out assault on VoIP competition.
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source
 
I'll take my VoIP, thank you and forget Comcast. I wish these monopolies didn't exist and there were three or more cable companies to choose from. Out here I suppose we are lucky; there's Comcast, Qwest and Provo City that all do the communications bit. I'll take the Provo City Communications any day of the week.
 
Originally posted by: cscpianoman
I'll take my VoIP, thank you and forget Comcast. I wish these monopolies didn't exist and there were three or more cable companies to choose from. Out here I suppose we are lucky; there's Comcast, Qwest and Provo City that all do the communications bit. I'll take the Provo City Communications any day of the week.
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Do you work for Novell or something? You're lucky to be in an area that has so much technology and such a wide variety of carriers. Unfortunately, here it's comcast or nothing on the cable front. If you live out of the city, I believe the carrier is Charter....DSL is an option, but defeats the purpose of VOIP.

I run Packet8 for VOIP and have been using it as my primary land-line for over a year now. I tried Sunrocket, but the quality was terrible. If you are goint to squeak by their radar, you either need to use a less popular service or use one that doesn't suck bandwidth.
 
VOIP is a great idea but the lack of 911 kills it. I think i'll stick with my cell phone for myh main line. 🙂
 
One more reason to add to my growing list of why I fvcking hate cablecos.
Originally posted by: venk
VOIP is a great idea but the lack of 911 kills it. I think i'll stick with my cell phone for myh main line. 🙂
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😕
 
Originally posted by: venk
VOIP is a great idea but the lack of 911 kills it. I think i'll stick with my cell phone for myh main line. 🙂
Click to expand...
Most companies offer 911 via location systems or middlemen....you basically call their operator that connects you to the appropriate dispatch based on your statement address. This is being automated more and more...
 
Let me see if I can put this into perspective of the network OWNER. If I owned a cable or telephone network and the law allowed me to do whatever I'd like to that network I owned while I have tariff-based BEST-EFFORT accessability being offered then I would most certainly identify streams of revenue I could enter into and inhibit my competition under what the law allows.

So, I can not blame cable and telephone operators for doing this. Indie VoIP companies knew all along that this would happen since they cannot control the network and are too cheap/poor to deploy their own network. Much like Indie ISPs (e.g. Earthstink), they leach off of someone else's network because its cheapest for them to not deploy their own network on the local-loop arena.

I think most consumers are completely ignorant to what they are paying for in terms of Internet access. The entire idea of 'best effort' is lost to their little psychosis, and then complain when they do not get T1-SLA level quality in their best-effort service. If you want qualty then pay for it.
 
Originally posted by: GhostDoggy
Let me see if I can put this into perspective of the network OWNER. If I owned a cable or telephone network and the law allowed me to do whatever I'd like to that network I owned while I have tariff-based BEST-EFFORT accessability being offered then I would most certainly identify streams of revenue I could enter into and inhibit my competition under what the law allows.

So, I can not blame cable and telephone operators for doing this. Indie VoIP companies knew all along that this would happen since they cannot control the network and are too cheap/poor to deploy their own network. Much like Indie ISPs (e.g. Earthstink), they leach off of someone else's network because its cheapest for them to not deploy their own network on the local-loop arena.

I think most consumers are completely ignorant to what they are paying for in terms of Internet access. The entire idea of 'best effort' is lost to their little psychosis, and then complain when they do not get T1-SLA level quality in their best-effort service. If you want qualty then pay for it.
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CEO of Comcast
 
Pretty sure the FCC already went after Cox or Charter or someone for blocking the ports that VoIP uses. They said they are not allowed to do that due to federal regulations. I wouldn't worry too much.

Here's one article..
http://news.com.com/Telco+agrees+to+sto...ng+VoIP+calls/2100-7352_3-5598633.html

And quite frankly, if Cable companies block it, I'm sure DSL would embrace it and then everyone could just switch over. They'd be shooting themselves in the foot. Unless the DSL people also tried to block it... But I'm sure the FCC would never let that happen otherwise VOnage and SunRocket and the rest woudl literally go otu of business or have to become ISPs themselves.
 
Originally posted by: Mail5398
Originally posted by: GhostDoggy
Let me see if I can put this into perspective of the network OWNER. If I owned a cable or telephone network and the law allowed me to do whatever I'd like to that network I owned while I have tariff-based BEST-EFFORT accessability being offered then I would most certainly identify streams of revenue I could enter into and inhibit my competition under what the law allows.

So, I can not blame cable and telephone operators for doing this. Indie VoIP companies knew all along that this would happen since they cannot control the network and are too cheap/poor to deploy their own network. Much like Indie ISPs (e.g. Earthstink), they leach off of someone else's network because its cheapest for them to not deploy their own network on the local-loop arena.

I think most consumers are completely ignorant to what they are paying for in terms of Internet access. The entire idea of 'best effort' is lost to their little psychosis, and then complain when they do not get T1-SLA level quality in their best-effort service. If you want qualty then pay for it.
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CEO of Comcast
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That would be slander. 😀

Makes no difference. If you owned Comcast you would do the same thing. BTW, I work for one of the phone companies, and not a cable company.
 
VOIP is a "disruptive technology" that sort of came out of the woodwork and into the news lately. adapt or die is kind of the key here for a lot of companies. The future clearly does not rely on antiquated , monopolized, copper-based networking (at least for phones).

i am happy with my vonage, but my parents would never try it because they pretty much need 100% guaranteed uptime. as long as there are a lot of people out there like that then there is no real worry here for corporations to continue to make money...at least for the time being.
 
Originally posted by: GhostDoggy
Let me see if I can put this into perspective of the network OWNER. If I owned a cable or telephone network and the law allowed me to do whatever I'd like to that network I owned while I have tariff-based BEST-EFFORT accessability being offered then I would most certainly identify streams of revenue I could enter into and inhibit my competition under what the law allows.

So, I can not blame cable and telephone operators for doing this. Indie VoIP companies knew all along that this would happen since they cannot control the network and are too cheap/poor to deploy their own network. Much like Indie ISPs (e.g. Earthstink), they leach off of someone else's network because its cheapest for them to not deploy their own network on the local-loop arena.

I think most consumers are completely ignorant to what they are paying for in terms of Internet access. The entire idea of 'best effort' is lost to their little psychosis, and then complain when they do not get T1-SLA level quality in their best-effort service. If you want qualty then pay for it.
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The indie companys don't run their own lines because cable companies have a monopoly.
 
Originally posted by: GhostDoggy
Let me see if I can put this into perspective of the network OWNER. If I owned a cable or telephone network and the law allowed me to do whatever I'd like to that network I owned while I have tariff-based BEST-EFFORT accessability being offered then I would most certainly identify streams of revenue I could enter into and inhibit my competition under what the law allows.

So, I can not blame cable and telephone operators for doing this. Indie VoIP companies knew all along that this would happen since they cannot control the network and are too cheap/poor to deploy their own network. Much like Indie ISPs (e.g. Earthstink), they leach off of someone else's network because its cheapest for them to not deploy their own network on the local-loop arena.

I think most consumers are completely ignorant to what they are paying for in terms of Internet access. The entire idea of 'best effort' is lost to their little psychosis, and then complain when they do not get T1-SLA level quality in their best-effort service. If you want qualty then pay for it.
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You are missing a couple of key points.
1) Cable companies have a monopoly, this isn't conjecture its just a fact in all but a select few locations.
2) Phone companies (and therfore DSL lines) also have a monopoly, however they cannot legally block traffic or intentionally degrade particular services/sites etc. (even under the guise of best effort).
3) Cable companies do not have this restriction. The reason being cable company monopolies were originally used one way, to deliver content to houses. For this reason they were essential exempt. However phone lines have always been used to connect two people and the restrictions placed upon phone companies were put in for this reason (ie ma bell can't stop a call from a sprint network). Now that cable is being used for two way communication cable companies have yet to be reigned in. Therefore (at least as of the time I read a book on the subject) they can legally limit what they want, and then deny it to customers who will probably be hard-pressed to prove it.
4) Monopolies are illegal, for exactly the reason you stated above, you'd abuse your monopoly power and kill free commerce wherever it competed with you in anyway. However phone lines and cable lines are allowed to remain monopolies but must be regulated in order to prevent abuses of being allowed to have so much power.
 
Originally posted by: Scarpozzi
Originally posted by: venk
VOIP is a great idea but the lack of 911 kills it. I think i'll stick with my cell phone for myh main line. 🙂
Click to expand...
Most companies offer 911 via location systems or middlemen....you basically call their operator that connects you to the appropriate dispatch based on your statement address. This is being automated more and more...
Click to expand...

Actually, it is mandated by the FCC that it is provided. However, only a few companies had the resources to fulfill the mandate. I've had sunrocket and they have had e911 available for everyone I have referred since I signed up.

Originally posted by: Frank JuniorPretty sure the FCC already went after Cox or Charter or someone for blocking the ports that VoIP uses. They said they are not allowed to do that due to federal regulations. I wouldn't worry too much.
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Yeah, I remember when this swept through. However, I think with the two tiered internet talk and the sneakiness of Comcast, they can easily disrupt VoIP if they wanted. However, I haven't experienced it by me with SR. Is it possible to target one VoIP provider and not another? Or is it all or none?
 
Originally posted by: Scarpozzi
Originally posted by: cscpianoman
I'll take my VoIP, thank you and forget Comcast. I wish these monopolies didn't exist and there were three or more cable companies to choose from. Out here I suppose we are lucky; there's Comcast, Qwest and Provo City that all do the communications bit. I'll take the Provo City Communications any day of the week.
Click to expand...
Do you work for Novell or something? You're lucky to be in an area that has so much technology and such a wide variety of carriers. Unfortunately, here it's comcast or nothing on the cable front. If you live out of the city, I believe the carrier is Charter....DSL is an option, but defeats the purpose of VOIP.

I run Packet8 for VOIP and have been using it as my primary land-line for over a year now. I tried Sunrocket, but the quality was terrible. If you are goint to squeak by their radar, you either need to use a less popular service or use one that doesn't suck bandwidth.
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No, I don't work for Novell. Provo city just put in a fiber network and offer 10Mbps, VoIP and Cable over the network. A lot of companies are tapping into the network including BYU. From what I understand many cities in UT have something similar or are looking at the succes of iProvo before implementing their own. Spanish Fork (South of Provo) has their own network running. I think it is a great way to give cities revenue and fight back against large monopolies. I would rather my money go to the city than Comcast. I pay $70 a month for VoIP and a 10Mbps connection.
 
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