FCC Identifies, Fines VoIP Blocker

At $15K I can see ILECs and Cable companies getting excited at how cheap they can inconvenience Vonage.

Guidelines on what? When you pay your ISP, you pay for the traffic you'll use, why ISP need guidelines?

At least they were quick to act and get it fixed. It isn't worth a $15,000 fine for a company just to block the traffic. They should just join in and resell the service for vonage and make money off of it.

thats less then 50cents per subscriber...

More importantly not all ISP's can control the Bit-Rate (CBR, ABR, VBR, UBR, etc.) on the WAN between themselves and their subscribers. So, how does inplementing future guidelines help here, FCC?

If an ISP intentionally disrupts the traffic of a competing service, the FCC may be called in to try to prevent that from happening.

How do you figure this? Unless I misunderstood your comment, an ISP can control every aspect of network performance between themselves and their subscribers.

Example:

An Earthlink DSL subscriber in Atlanta will more commonly be found on BellSouth Telecommunications local WAN. This means that between the DSL modem and the Earthlink gateway (into their network) its riding Bellsouth ATM core. Those cores are setup for UBR and no differential treatment on the packets traveling with those tunnels/routes between the subscriber and ISP.

Additionally, the tariff service is for Bellsouth acting as a wholesalers to ISPs, and that tariff is based on UBR. You can classify layer three packets to contain priority, but on layer two they will be treated just like any other ATM packet, including ATM-carried packets that may have layer three qualities much lower.

And example within an example:

Two customers riding the same ILEC ATM core that is necessary between the two subscribers and their respective ISPs. One ISP sets up VoIP to have higher priority Layer-3 traffic than all other services. The other ISP doesn't offer VoIP and doesn't really care about Layer-3 priorities (QoS).

Now, on the LEC's ATM core the only thing that matters IN SOME CASES is the distinguishment of QoS on Layer-2 and both these customers are treated identically in this case. So, the second subscriber's porn, music, gaming, email, etc. traffic is treated more more or less important as the first subscriber's VoIP phone service.

In order to guarantee voice packets priority over all other forms of traffic this needs to be address on network segments that the ISPs do not control. This is where the much fear ILEC-offered VoIP will come into big play. This will be done through the use of a different network topology on both Layer-2 and 3 that will afford wholesale prioritization of packets. But who says that ILEC has to resell on that topology? No one.

Actually, it was blocking supposedly 200 Vonage users, so it's $75 per blocked subscriber

$15k? That's it? What the hell?! I think the FCC needs to switch the indecency fines with these. This is where the $500k fines belong.

They should have played it cool, now the FCC is going to start watching ISPs for these things. And soon be forced not to have premium traffic. We all learned this in fourth grade.

It's a small ISP you don't want to put them out of Business.

Ah, ok. You are absolutely right.

I'm not sure that the fine is the biggest deterent here. I think that a company may have problems with bad PR after being publically slapped on the wrist by the FCC.

Those $half-million fines are set by Congress, not by the FCC. Similarly, this $15K fine is statutory and also set by Congress. The FCC can't just decide one day to increase the statutory limits just like a judge can't decide one day to sentence a jaywalker to death. The FCC Enforcement Bureau has some leeway as to how they apply them but they do not set the numbers. If you are indeed outraged by this, contact your US Representative and Senator(s) and tell them. Venting here does nothing but empty your spleen.

no i meant for the ISP provider of 40k people,comes to less then 40-50cents

The consent decree (PDF) is at »hraunfoss.fcc.gov/edocs_ ··· 43A2.pdf for those who would like to see what actually happened here.

boy, do you ever have that right. The Bells soaked up a couple of billion dollars (yes, it's a "b") in fines putting the clecs out of business.

15 grand is chump change to the ILECs and cablecos - they will just ask the accounting department to sweep up the loose change off the floors.

That was a good read RadioDoc...Thanks for the link!

Agreed.

Looking at the FCC procedure, the FCC faced a choice. They could either wrap up a quickie case and draw the line in the sand for all ISP's to see and for users to be aware of, or they could have held off doing anything pending a rulemaking proceeding which could easily have taken 1 or 2 years or longer.

The real value here isn't about how hard somebody got spanked--it's that the FCC showed a willingness to spank for this offense, and let the rest of the community know about it. This says volumes more than mere speechifying by Commissioners.

All that said, it's not necessarily the last word. Some more recalcitrant and/or better funded ISP may decide to fight this issue out in the future, doubtlessly claiming various "technical" or "unrelated business" reasons for their practice. (Guess who fits this bill?) But if they do, they will do so in an environment where everybody knows the regulating agency has already condemned this conduct.

calvoiper

Are you saying that the FCC could force the ISP to use QOS for all the customers using third party VoIP?

Where did the FCC fine anyone?

Madison River made a "voluntary" payment of 15k to
the US Treasury to "make the FCC". If it went to the
courts, there would be clarity, but it didn't and ISPs
are not compelled to do anything. Read the order people.

I find it amusing that just a few days ago many where saying the fcc should be disbanded all togther.

They have done some shady things, but its good to see them do something right for once....

It kind of reminds me of the Michael Milliken (spelling) junk-bonds case during the 1980's. He made twice what they federal government fined him and walked away several hundred million dollars.

I wonder what specific Harvard MBA class I could take to learn that technique?

The internet is FREE! It is not fair for any ISP provider to block a VOIP provider! What is going on here! Is RoadRunner going to block your browser from seeing other ISP providers, like COMCAST, just becasue they offer simliar services?

That is stupid! Landlines companies like SBC can charge other companies, like Z-Tel for using there lines if they want, but it should not be so for the internet!

If I paid for the interenet service then I have the right to use any VOIP provider I see fit without any problems!
Those of you who have a problem with this are just blind and need more than glasses!

Peace!