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Wow, grandstanding much? There's no evidence ISPs have throttled VoIP or plan to, but if they did it would be REALLY BAD for $key_voter_demographic. Sorry guys

Wow, grandstanding much? There's no evidence ISPs have throttled VoIP or plan to, but if they did it would be REALLY BAD for $key_voter_demographic. Sorry guys, even if the end result is commendable, this is literally just FUD. If there's to be any hope of better politics, we need to reject this BS.

altcognito 12y ago
They don't need to. They just need to neglect their peer infrastructure and the desired effect will be the same.
- mseebach 12y ago
  Net neutrality doesn't require ISPs to maintain their infrastructure to any particular standard. It's fine that it's crap as long as it's equally crap for all traffic.
  - sp332 12y ago
    If you neglect peering, gradually some peering points will become more congested than others. So it won't be equally crap for all traffic. Some sources will get crappier service than others.
    - mseebach 12y ago
      Of course. There's just no language in any net neutrality proposals that will avoid that. The net neutrality crime in the Netflix debacle was trying to charge Netflix for access, not refusing to upgrade the peering point (since all traffic is equally/neutrally affected by the congestion).
jamroom 12y ago
The best predictor of future behavior is past behavior - we know ISP's have throttled streaming video to enhance their own streaming video offerings, so is it that far fetched to believe they would do the same with VOIP? Most of these large ISP's are heavy into bundling and offer their own VOIP packages, so I think it is fairly logical to assume this is being discussed internally somewhere. Definitely not FUD.
- mseebach 12y ago
  No, they've throttled streaming video to extort money from Netflix. VoIP has been eating telcos long distance revenue lunch since Vonage came out 10 years ago. Why do you think it's "fairly logical to assume" that they're only just now getting around to to talking about what they might do about that? Indeed, Comcast did try to throw its weight around in 2009. I'm not sure what came of if, but blocking competing VoIP evidently wasn't it.
drdaeman 12y ago
There is evidence, in Europe. I've also personally witnessed this in Russia - mobile operator was blocking VoIP. Don't think US is any different in this regard. Unfortunately, a bookmark from 2012 for a full research text had died, but I've found a brief press release here: http://berec.europa.eu/doc/2012/TMI_press_release.pdf http://berec.europa.eu/doc/2012/TMI_press_release.pdf
- mseebach 12y ago
  Yes, you're right, mobile is different. But the article is explicity about broadband.
  - drdaeman 12y ago
    No idea about first world countries, but in Russia there are broadband ISPs who throttle or completely drop P2P traffic for various reasons. Don't know about VoIP, though - the only cases for blocking those I've read about are corporate networks with their inhumane firewalling. I can't say throttling/blocking is completely universally bad - for example, we (I work for an ISP, too) had to drop uTP traffic when uTorrent just rolled that protocol, because due to high-PPS low-size packets it put quite a heavy strain on routers, so everyone had worsened network experience. Even though that was somehow controversial decision I still think that that blocking brought more good than evil (we didn't block classic BitTorrent protocol by any means, just uTP) so there should be some rare and sane exceptions from Net Neutrality rules, but nonetheless... the point is, that happens on broadband, too. Just less often.
    - deleted 12y ago
      [deleted]
kiram9 12y ago
Back around 2006-2008 Comcast was suspected of massaging Vonage data to degrade the connection when they were releasing their competing phone service. See: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB121564856618241033.html?mod=googlenews_wsj http://online.wsj.com/article/SB121564856618241033.html?mod=... http://adamnoah.com/comcast-admits-to-blocking-vonage/ http://adamnoah.com/comcast-admits-to-blocking-vonage/ http://www.wired.com/2006/03/comcast_throttling_vonage_users/ http://www.wired.com/2006/03/comcast_throttling_vonage_users... http://gigaom.com/2008/07/09/did-comcast-just-admit-to-vonage-traffic-shaping/ http://gigaom.com/2008/07/09/did-comcast-just-admit-to-vonag...
- mseebach 12y ago
  And they were slapped around and stopped doing it, so it's great that politicians are taking action in favour of consumers only 6-8 short years later.
Qzmp 12y ago
Digicel is currently accused of blocking voip on its networks in the caribbean.
- oz 12y ago
  Jamaican here. It's not just an accusation. They've definitely done it and admitted it. I don't know if Skype is blocked, but they've accused Viber and other such services of "toll bypass", and blocked them. The Viber CEO said in an interview that Digicel wants them to pay to be allowed to work again.
cordite 12y ago
I can't remember the name off hand, but there is a VoIP provider that has part of their marketing about how they are stable in the face of degradation. They specifically pointed out samples between theirs and Vonage with the same (poor) network conditions.

altcognito 12y ago

They don't need to. They just need to neglect their peer infrastructure and the desired effect will be the same.

mseebach 12y ago
Net neutrality doesn't require ISPs to maintain their infrastructure to any particular standard. It's fine that it's crap as long as it's equally crap for all traffic.
- sp332 12y ago
  If you neglect peering, gradually some peering points will become more congested than others. So it won't be equally crap for all traffic. Some sources will get crappier service than others.
  - mseebach 12y ago
    Of course. There's just no language in any net neutrality proposals that will avoid that. The net neutrality crime in the Netflix debacle was trying to charge Netflix for access, not refusing to upgrade the peering point (since all traffic is equally/neutrally affected by the congestion).

jamroom 12y ago

The best predictor of future behavior is past behavior - we know ISP's have throttled streaming video to enhance their own streaming video offerings, so is it that far fetched to believe they would do the same with VOIP? Most of these large ISP's are heavy into bundling and offer their own VOIP packages, so I think it is fairly logical to assume this is being discussed internally somewhere. Definitely not FUD.

mseebach 12y ago
No, they've throttled streaming video to extort money from Netflix. VoIP has been eating telcos long distance revenue lunch since Vonage came out 10 years ago. Why do you think it's "fairly logical to assume" that they're only just now getting around to to talking about what they might do about that? Indeed, Comcast did try to throw its weight around in 2009. I'm not sure what came of if, but blocking competing VoIP evidently wasn't it.

drdaeman 12y ago

There is evidence, in Europe. I've also personally witnessed this in Russia - mobile operator was blocking VoIP. Don't think US is any different in this regard. Unfortunately, a bookmark from 2012 for a full research text had died, but I've found a brief press release here: http://berec.europa.eu/doc/2012/TMI_press_release.pdf http://berec.europa.eu/doc/2012/TMI_press_release.pdf

mseebach 12y ago
Yes, you're right, mobile is different. But the article is explicity about broadband.
- drdaeman 12y ago
  No idea about first world countries, but in Russia there are broadband ISPs who throttle or completely drop P2P traffic for various reasons. Don't know about VoIP, though - the only cases for blocking those I've read about are corporate networks with their inhumane firewalling. I can't say throttling/blocking is completely universally bad - for example, we (I work for an ISP, too) had to drop uTP traffic when uTorrent just rolled that protocol, because due to high-PPS low-size packets it put quite a heavy strain on routers, so everyone had worsened network experience. Even though that was somehow controversial decision I still think that that blocking brought more good than evil (we didn't block classic BitTorrent protocol by any means, just uTP) so there should be some rare and sane exceptions from Net Neutrality rules, but nonetheless... the point is, that happens on broadband, too. Just less often.
  - deleted 12y ago
    [deleted]

kiram9 12y ago

Back around 2006-2008 Comcast was suspected of massaging Vonage data to degrade the connection when they were releasing their competing phone service. See: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB121564856618241033.html?mod=googlenews_wsj http://online.wsj.com/article/SB121564856618241033.html?mod=... http://adamnoah.com/comcast-admits-to-blocking-vonage/ http://adamnoah.com/comcast-admits-to-blocking-vonage/ http://www.wired.com/2006/03/comcast_throttling_vonage_users/ http://www.wired.com/2006/03/comcast_throttling_vonage_users... http://gigaom.com/2008/07/09/did-comcast-just-admit-to-vonage-traffic-shaping/ http://gigaom.com/2008/07/09/did-comcast-just-admit-to-vonag...

mseebach 12y ago
And they were slapped around and stopped doing it, so it's great that politicians are taking action in favour of consumers only 6-8 short years later.

Qzmp 12y ago

Digicel is currently accused of blocking voip on its networks in the caribbean.

oz 12y ago
Jamaican here. It's not just an accusation. They've definitely done it and admitted it. I don't know if Skype is blocked, but they've accused Viber and other such services of "toll bypass", and blocked them. The Viber CEO said in an interview that Digicel wants them to pay to be allowed to work again.

cordite 12y ago

I can't remember the name off hand, but there is a VoIP provider that has part of their marketing about how they are stable in the face of degradation. They specifically pointed out samples between theirs and Vonage with the same (poor) network conditions.