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Reviews:
 ·magicjack.com
| reply to PGHammer
Re: MagicTalk isn't "this week" said by PGHammer:You chuckled when the poster said that you can run VoIP over a dial-up connection. I did indeed use VoIP over dial-up, which is absolutely true! I chuckled because it means the rural resident would have to leave their computer on 24x7, tying up their phone line 24x7, requiring their neighbors to use VoIP over dialup to call them.
It doesn't sound like a reasonable solution just so VoIP companies can violate the law in pursuit of race-to-the-bottom profits.
said by PGHammer:While even Whitacre knew he wouldn't be *stuck* with them all, he also knew that getting *stuck* with any of them would impact the bottom line in terms of capex impacts. That's my concern too. Rural phone service is obviously subsidized to serve a social goal. If anyone disagrees with it (or feels it's being abused by traffic-pumping operations, or the subsidization should be targeted to grow broadband in those areas), the proper channel for policy review and change is the FCC and Congress.
Not simply opting out of the law. Giving their business an advantage over their competition.
Personally, I think the timing of this move is strange. MagicJack completed calls to rural areas for 3 years and made a healthy profit. Healthy enough that investors were excited when MagicJack began trading on the stock exchange a month ago.
When MagicJack began trading publicly, it released financial information from a time it was private and not subject to the accounting/reporting standards of the SEC and NASDAQ.
I'm curious whether those financials were a bit contrived ("cooked") and now MJ is feeling pressure to make its first release of regulated financials match the unregulated ones.
AT&T reported Google Voice to the FCC over blocked calls to rural numbers. (Google backed down, blocking only 100 numbers associated with traffic-pumping schemes.). As large as MagicJack is, it will be surprising if AT&T doesn't do the same thing. MagicJack uses AT&T to provide international calling. I don't know how large that business may be, and if that relationship could influence AT&T to look the other way. | |
Reviews:
 ·Comcast
| said by amigo_boy:said by PGHammer:You chuckled when the poster said that you can run VoIP over a dial-up connection. I did indeed use VoIP over dial-up, which is absolutely true! I chuckled because it means the rural resident would have to leave their computer on 24x7, tying up their phone line 24x7, requiring their neighbors to use VoIP over dialup to call them. It doesn't sound like a reasonable solution just so VoIP companies can violate the law in pursuit of race-to-the-bottom profits. said by PGHammer:While even Whitacre knew he wouldn't be *stuck* with them all, he also knew that getting *stuck* with any of them would impact the bottom line in terms of capex impacts. That's my concern too. Rural phone service is obviously subsidized to serve a social goal. If anyone disagrees with it (or feels it's being abused by traffic-pumping operations, or the subsidization should be targeted to grow broadband in those areas), the proper channel for policy review and change is the FCC and Congress. Not simply opting out of the law. Giving their business an advantage over their competition. Personally, I think the timing of this move is strange. MagicJack completed calls to rural areas for 3 years and made a healthy profit. Healthy enough that investors were excited when MagicJack began trading on the stock exchange a month ago. When MagicJack began trading publicly, it released financial information from a time it was private and not subject to the accounting/reporting standards of the SEC and NASDAQ. I'm curious whether those financials were a bit contrived ("cooked") and now MJ is feeling pressure to make its first release of regulated financials match the unregulated ones. AT&T reported Google Voice to the FCC over blocked calls to rural numbers. (Google backed down, blocking only 100 numbers associated with traffic-pumping schemes.). As large as MagicJack is, it will be surprising if AT&T doesn't do the same thing. MagicJack uses AT&T to provide international calling. I don't know how large that business may be, and if that relationship could influence AT&T to look the other way. That is the real issue - not that VoIP isn't possible over dial-up (it is), but that it would basically be a *nailed circuit*, which neither the subscriber, or the telco, really wants. (That is, in fact, the only advantage of low-speed broadband; it can be used for bandwidth-irrelevant services, such as domestic VoIP, without losing voice-grade circuits; Verizon, in fact, used to include low-speed ADSL or ISDN as a throw-in with Centrex.) MJ uses AT&T for the domestic half of international calling; however, the other half is not within MJ's purview (it's not within AT&T's purview, either). It is international calls (and the tarriffs of non-US telcos for those calls originating or terminating in the US) that has long been the driver for VoIP (this predates not only Vonage World, but even predates the founding of Vonage). It may well be the case that certain international exchanges do something similar to traffic-pumping (if not doing that outright), about which our FCC is powerless (has any country *successfully* complained to the ITU, the International Telecommunicatons Union, the international organization that is supposed to referee such disputes, about such things?). Submitting to what is basically blackmail is problematical for any business; however, by forcing *all* telcos to connect all domestic calls, even those known to associated with traffic-pumping, that is exactly what you are doing..
Doing evil in the name of good is still doing evil.
Congress? The same legislative body that has refused to even touch Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, despite their actions burning us as a nation twice (first with the thrifts, and now the 2009 disaster) simply because they are being seen as too important to let fail? I have NO faith in Congress as a body to solve the problem (especially with their current leadership). It's not a Democratic or Republican issue (I detest the Congressional leaders of both darn near equally), but an issue of *incumbency*. | |
Reviews:
·magicjack.com
| said by PGHammer:however, by forcing *all* telcos to connect all domestic calls, even those known to associated with traffic-pumping, that is exactly what you are doing.. I don't believe it has to be a slippery slope.
The social goal was to promote telephone service for rural areas (the people living there). Not to promote free services for metro areas. Therefore, I wouldn't require them to serve traffic-pumping schemes.
said by PGHammer:Doing evil in the name of good is still doing evil. But, we accept (even eagerly welcome) a little evil for collective good all the time.
Things like zoning laws, building codes, food- & drug-quality laws, the SEC and FDIC, social creation of corporate entities -- a legal yet fictional "person" created out of thin air by societal fiat to protect officers and investors from their common-law responsibility for poor business and co-ownership choices.
All those things share the same theme. Impeding on what some people may like to do, so that everyone has the benefit of more predictable outcomes, less personal responsibility for their own choices, etc.
Why should protecting/subsidizing rural residents be different? Why should we stick it to them just because they chose to live in a rural area (and provide metro residents with raw materials)? | |
Reviews:
·Comcast
| said by amigo_boy:said by PGHammer:however, by forcing *all* telcos to connect all domestic calls, even those known to associated with traffic-pumping, that is exactly what you are doing.. I don't believe it has to be a slippery slope. The social goal was to promote telephone service for rural areas (the people living there). Not to promote free services for metro areas. Therefore, I wouldn't require them to serve traffic-pumping schemes. said by PGHammer:Doing evil in the name of good is still doing evil. But, we accept (even eagerly welcome) a little evil for collective good all the time. Things like zoning laws, building codes, food- & drug-quality laws, the SEC and FDIC, social creation of corporate entities -- a legal yet fictional "person" created out of thin air by societal fiat to protect officers and investors from their common-law responsibility for poor business and co-ownership choices. All those things share the same theme. Impeding on what some people may like to do, so that everyone has the benefit of more predictable outcomes, less personal responsibility for their own choices, etc. Why should protecting/subsidizing rural residents be different? Why should we stick it to them just because they chose to live in a rural area (and provide metro residents with raw materials)? And therein lay the *slippery slope* part of my original argument.
That *little evil* wound up becoming a camel's nose. While it may not have been the intent originally, that is pretty much the end result. (That's not me saying so - that is "United States v. American Telephone and Telegraph", AKA the original lawsuit against AT&T, and the Consent Decree thereof, saying so.)
The same thing, unfortunately, applies to the *little evil* associated with the promotion of home ownership. The end result (in every nation where that lofty social goal has been attempted) has been inflated housing prices, followed by a correction nearly as savage as that resulting from the Great Depression (and didn't that lead, pretty much directly, to that rather nasty mess called World War II?). | |
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