Vonage Says VoIP Traffic Blocked By Providers 410
Anonymouse writes "Advanced IP Pipeline reports that Vonage has filed numerous complaints with the FCC over their VoIP traffic being blocked by major providers, something providers have long worried about but had not yet been seen 'in the wild.' Analysts expect the issue of network neutrality (or network discrimination) is only going to get larger as the bell and cable companies expand their VoIP efforts and bump heads with smaller providers."
there is no current law or regulation?! (Score:4, Interesting)
In fairness to the cable companies... (Score:1, Interesting)
For the purpose of disclosure, I do work for Comcast. That also gives me insight to how much money we are going to spend to upgrade our network so we can do a widespread VOIP rollout.
Isn't this to be expected? (Score:5, Interesting)
The simple fact of the matter is that the Triple-Play threat (Voice, Video, Data) should be more of a concern to Vonage, as bundling will end up being more of a concern than network performance.
Oh look, a Vonage advert at the top of the page.
VoIP over SSL? (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:there is no current law or regulation?! (Score:3, Interesting)
potentially defensible.. a sip phone is in fact a 'server' which is forbidden by most AUP's
(for those of you whose isp's allow servers, I SAID MOST DAMNIT, and you are very lucky indeed)
Not just at the IP level (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:In fairness to the cable companies... (Score:2, Interesting)
Corporations (Score:5, Interesting)
I guess this has been the presumption of the Internet for corporations, but this has never been presumed for consumers.
How many consumers are using broadband providers that prevent them from serving web content on port 80?
What about users who get stiffed when their "unlimited monthly Internet" gets terminated due to "excessive usage" (hence leaving us to wonder what part of the service was "unlimited"?)
I think this is just a case of corporations get preferential treatment, when consumers would never be presumed to have the same rights.
Smart business strategy (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:In fairness to the cable companies... (Score:1, Interesting)
i expect that the packets i'm sending should get to wherever the fuck i am sending them unless i'm breaking the law. i shouldn't have to worry about companies having a pissing contest.
the internet that i knew wasn't like this. back when i first jumped on board the net (around '93) it was pretty much deemed bad netiquette for folks to block off traffic unless they were doing something sneaky or illegal. this is really bad news and with precedents like this i fear it will only get worse.
How they get away with it (Score:5, Interesting)
So this is a mixed blessing.
Re:there is no current law or regulation?! (Score:5, Interesting)
Now, IMHO, this is why the big carriers can't or won't filter competing VoIP traffic. No doubt they'd love to, but then they wouldn't be able to use Common Carrier status as a legal protection against what goes on through their network. No doubt the RIAA would love to be able to force Comcast or AT&T to filter music sharing.
Re:In fairness to the cable companies... (Score:5, Interesting)
By setting precedent (of norms, not law) like this ISPs have given themselves the power to severely curtail open and flexible communication. The real Internet, unfettered IPv4, is dying I'm sorry to say. This isn't just among cable companies; DSL also routinely blocks TCP packets by ports. The only real solution I see is creating new uncensored realms within say VPNs. Unfortunately, many ISPs also ban VPNs.
The best thing an Internet user can probably do is complain to their ISP if certain types of traffic seems to be blocked. One better step would be to threaten your ISP over breach of contract, if they were to provide you "Internet" (i.e. IPv4) service but aren't delivering.
Re:In fairness to the cable companies... (Score:3, Interesting)
I can appreciate that it's going to take some upgrading on the part of the ISPs to handle the increase in traffic, but good grief, that is what you're being paid for. If you could, would you have implemented blocking of port 80 (www) had you known how much traffic it was going to "leech" off your system? Really, what's the difference? All those evil web servers out there leeching off your system. I'm sure a "disproportionately large" chunk of your network traffic is www, surely you are justified in blocking port 80 in the interest of conserving your network's limited resources?
I believe your justifications are unfounded. It looks more like cable companies are trying to block other VOIP from getting a good start until they can get their own VOIP going.
E911 (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:In fairness to the cable companies... (Score:2, Interesting)
They can't win. (Score:2, Interesting)
ALMAFUERTE
Re:It's an ISP... (Score:5, Interesting)
That is not, by the way, modified by any fine print in their service agreements, unless they can show that customers in general read and understand the agreements. You cannot morally or (in the US or other former British possessions) legally bind somebody to a contract when you are deliberately relying on that person's not understanding the contract's terms; I believe the term is "meeting of minds".
ISPs routinely rely on, and indeed encourage, their customers' technical and legal ignorance. They also prey on people's basic good nature, people's bizzarre respect for arbitrary corporate "policies", and people's unwillingness or lack of energy to assert their rights. They should not be allowed to get away with it. The ISP industry has become a really, really dirty one, and needs cleaning up.
When ISPs start putting these restrictions in all their advertising, with the same prominence as their rates and (alleged) bandwidth, they can restrict customers' traffic. Until then, they are obligated to carry traffic in the reasonable and customary way... which means at least not blocking traffic to competitors, and arguably treating every packet exactly the same with no filtering, QoS, transparent proxies, restrictions on servers (how many customers understand the definition of a "server") or anything of the kind.
Re:there is no current law or regulation?! (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:there is no current law or regulation?! (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:In fairness to the cable companies... (Score:2, Interesting)
Back to the point, though...
I was talking to the tech support person about Port 25 Out blocking, and they brought up a good point: The mass of idiotry, the DSL customers of the area, were on their way to getting the IP range blacklisted from mass virus-infected spammers. Although I, and all the other customers, would be "more free" having port 25 open, realistically, I would have a much less useful service when my emails started getting bounced and spam-flagged.
The only thing I can fault them for is making it unconditional, not even letting people have access to port again if they called tech support. Other than that, they would either have to resort to a more "snooping" method of filtering, require specialized software, or end up getting blacklisted.
Luckily, my hosting provider (Just-hosting.com
This is already happening in my country (Score:3, Interesting)
New port numbers aren't a solution - but... (Score:3, Interesting)
New port numbers aren't necessarily a solution, because someone calling you has to have a way to find you.
Fortunately, while there are default port numbers, they're not hardwired into the protocol. SIP registrars (directories), redirect servers ("i've moved"), proxies (firewall traversers, PBXes), and user agent servers (sip phones doing call forwarding, etc.) can all redirect your sip negotiation to any port they like, not just the default port.
An ISP trying to block someone using an external registrar would pretty much have to identify the SIP session by its content, which means examining the start of every TCP connection or UDP packet (SIP can use either) to figure out if it's a SIP session.
Unfortunately, the upcoming generation of edge routers can DO that. B-(
Re:there is no current law or regulation?! (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:"Nothing for you to see here. Please move along (Score:4, Interesting)
Even if nobody but the first posters themselves know the difference, just spoiling the experience for them would make it worth it.
Comment removed (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Can anyone explain this? (Score:3, Interesting)
You are assuming that The port is blocked. This is the most stupid neandertal approach, though when cablecos and telcos are concerned such approaches are what is to be expected.
The correct assumption is that the traffic is not blocked, but assigned to a low priority class and throttled. Even if this is not being done now, it will be the situation in a year or two. I have been following RFPs run by several major telcos and the ability to both define and apply such policies is a must. If you do not have it your equipment does not get past the initial phase. And they are not talking per interface classes and diffserv here. They want it on the scale of a whole counry network with an idiot friendly GUI to put in front of the droid in business development who will be defining the policy assigned to each product.
Basically Vonage and Co are zombies and they will rot away in a the next 2-3 years. As Don Corleone used to say "Nothing personal, just business".
Now you know why Skype do NAT/FW busting (Score:4, Interesting)
The skype program can even automatically detect whether a connection is BEING blocked, and can decide to set up a new connection to another intermediate machine.
Remember - skype's program makes at least 50 random connections to other computers in the distributed network, and any one of these could be used to route voice traffic.
Carriers stand absolutely zero chance of blocking skype.
Which is why I've been advocating the creation of a public distributed "VPN" along the same lines - to carry more than just VoIP traffic.
LNP Transfer question (Score:2, Interesting)
I didn't find the answer to this question in the Telecom Act of 1996
Re:In fairness to the cable companies... (Score:3, Interesting)
I live outside the USA, in the somehwat tiny country called the Netherlands. Where I live, I have a choice between at least 3 telcos, at least 5 DSL ISPs (using one of the 3 telcos, and one offering the alternative of cable)
My ISP started years ago as a 'free' internet provider, and is in fact a part of one of the 3 telcos. Now, I happen to use some other telco, but can still get their services (and DSL) despite it not going through their own lines.
They just upgraded my connection to 8mbit down and 1mbit up, give fixed IPs, allow running servers explicitly (not unusual overhere actually), have a fair use policy, but despite using 100s of gigabytes/month I have yet to run into the limits of that policy. They are also not an exception here, and competition forces them to keep this up.
The interesting thing is that part of this is a consequuence of government interference, specifically, forcing telcos to carry DSL for any ISP and not just their own.
The telco that my ISP belongs to has to allow others on their network, but in turn, their ISP is also allowed on the network of other telcos, so in the end it evens out nicely ad both have the possibility to deliver services quicker and with less investement.
Regulation that serves a clear purpose and is implemented well can do a lot of good for an otherwise free market, and can in fact make that market more free.
I know that doing it yourself is the American way in this, but on behalf of its citizens, the overnment could in theory do a lot of good here.
Re:"Nothing for you to see here. Please move along (Score:5, Interesting)
I work for such a provider, and we're also a Old School Long Distance(tm) company. If we were to block or limit wanted traffic (VoIP service), we would be breaking the statutes that allow us to remain common carriers of IP traffic.
Even to deal with virus outbreaks, we don't stop the packets (that would be filtering, which is bad), we just redirect them to a device I have built that can identify the customer from radius logs and network maps, then spits out a report for us to contact them.
Common carrier is important, and there is court prescidence to justify the fact that 'rate limiting' is the same as 'filtering' in the eyes of common carrier status. Let someone take it to court against the provider, then there will be hell to pay. Would you want to be "responsible" for the data passing over your internet connection?
Thought not.
Solution: (Score:3, Interesting)
That's pretty much the solution any time some idiot tries to filter your network traffic. At that point they either have to let it though or they have to start blocking any traffic they can't identify. And the latter option results in a substantially unusable internet connection and they'd lose all their customers.
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