[78528] in North American Network Operators' Group
Re: US slaps fine on company blocking VoIP
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Bill Nash)
Mon Mar 7 12:05:00 2005
Date: Mon, 7 Mar 2005 09:05:58 -0800 (PST)
From: Bill Nash <billn@billn.net>
To: Adi Linden <adil@adis.on.ca>
Cc: Robert Blayzor <rblayzor@inoc.net>, nanog@nanog.org
In-Reply-To: <Pine.CYG.4.58.0503070838530.2960@citabria>
Errors-To: owner-nanog@merit.edu
On Mon, 7 Mar 2005, Adi Linden wrote:
>> If VOIP doesn't run on your network because you've oversold your capacity,
>> no amount of QoS is going to put the quality back into your service.
>> People will find better ISPs. If you deliberately set QoS to favor your
>> services over a competitor, whom your customers are also paying for
>> service, you'll be staring down prosecutors, at some point. It's
>> anti-competitive behavior, as you're taking deliberate actions to degrade
>> the service of a competitor, simply because you can.
>
> Let's say I sell a premium VoIP offering for an additional fee on my
> network. I apply QoS to deliver my VoIP offering to my customers but as a
> result all other VoIP service is literally useless during heavy use
> times you'd consider this anti-competitive behavior?
Applying QoS to your VOIP traffic at the expense of *all* other traffic
would be edging against a gray area. Applying QoS to competitive VOIP
traffic specifically to improve the quality of your service at the expense
of theirs is likely to be a problem. Again, I am not a lawyer. I would
strongly suggest consulting one if this is a serious concern.
The Internet is not regulated because operators tend to be effective at
self policing. Engaging in these kinds of practices is asking for
regulation.
- billn
