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Misleading title, I thought it meant that the EU is thinking about blocking Internet calls but they're just investigating whether companies do it.
by Hexstream 18y ago
Misleading title, I thought it meant that the EU is thinking about blocking Internet calls but they're just investigating whether companies do it.
- jodrellblank 18y agoYou misreading it doesn't make it a misleading title. They are looking into "blocking of calls", not "blocking calls". Just because American-English has conditioned the world that "Off of" is the same as "Off" doesn't mean that "of" has no meaning. I don't know whether it's anticompetetive to block such calls, but it probably hinges on whether we take telephone to mean "a telephone (traditional)", "any device that looks and acts like a traditional telephone (e.g. USB skypephone)" or "any system that carries speech between some number of particular persons over some distance". Depending on which you choose, you get a different answer and interpretation. There was a local case recently where a ferry-bridge was classed as a bridge, because it's on a chain fixed between two points, and the local authority wanted it reclassified as a boat because it floats, so they could up the harbour taxes 40x. The counter argument was that it only floats between two points winching itself along a chain, what kind of useless "boat" is that? As I see it, it's clearly not a good fit for either definition, and thus the argument is completely pointless. This is similar - it's not at all a classic phonecall, so don't treat it like that. They're providing a data service and limiting the types of data that can be sent, that's what should be under investigation. It's a nontechnical restriction designed to bump up profits. Either limit the data rate or latency or max transfer allowance, or adjust your charges to be profitable with increased use, but stay out of what it's used for (legal concerns excepted).