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FCC Rules On Pulver Free World Dialup 119

Posted by timothy from the no-brainers-are-easy-for-the-fcc dept.
An anonymous reader writes " Light Reading is reporting that the verdict is in on Pulver's FWD. 'The first big decision was a victory for VoIP proponents. The commission ruled that Pulver.com's Free World Dialup VOIP service is an information service, not a telecommunications service. The decision was based largely on the analysis that it doesn't fit the 1996 Telecom Act's definition of a telecommunications service.' To me this was a no-brainer on the part of the FCC. Let's see if they get the rest right too."
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FCC Rules On Pulver Free World Dialup More

FCC Rules On Pulver Free World Dialup

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  • If you want to join... (Score:5, Informative)

    by ArbiterOne ( 715233 ) on Saturday February 14, 2004 @12:14PM (#8279842) Homepage
    Apparently it's free... but the site was down when I arrived. The main site can be confusing, but the FWD site is: http://www.fwd.pulver.com.
    • What's a totally free, very simple to set up and use VOIP software? Answer: Skype. This is made by the same folks that gave us Kazaa, only this software is designed for free Internet phone calls--not file sharing. Check out a review at http://www.techtv.com/screensavers/downloadoftheda y/story/0,24330,3545284,00.html You can download this software at: http://www.skype.com/

  • Dupe (Score:2, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward
    From Thursday [slashdot.org].

    • Actually (Score:2, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward
      It was Wednesday [slashdot.org].

    • Re:Dupe (Score:5, Informative)

      by Dun Malg ( 230075 ) on Saturday February 14, 2004 @01:37PM (#8280348) Homepage
      No, it's not a dupe. Let me quote from the story you link:

      "The FCC will be holding an Open Commission Meeting [PDF] Thursday. Number one on the agenda is a 'Petition for Declaratory Ruling that Pulver.com's Free World Dialup is neither Telecommunications nor a Telecommunications Service.'"

      Notice the future tense. The FCC hadn't ruled yet. They were going to make a decision. This story is abut the decision they made. Whether the ruling was a foregone conclusion is debatable, but that doesn't make it a dupe. Get a clue.

  • Why VOIP is not a communication thing (Score:5, Insightful)

    by moduc ( 620300 ) on Saturday February 14, 2004 @12:15PM (#8279855)
    I love VOIP. Also, having free call over the world is great. However, I just cannot understand why VOIP is not a communication medium, and why the FCC has to decide whether to impose rule on it or not. It's is another way to transfer voice right? So, it does not work like a phone, but it does what a phone does - providing a mechanism for 2 people or more talking to each other. Maybe it should not be regulated because if doing so would slow the adoption of this technolog. But to decide whether it's like a telephone or not, to be fair, I think it's just like telephone or TV, no difference.

    • Re:Why VOIP is not a communication thing (Score:5, Interesting)

      by oldave ( 160729 ) on Saturday February 14, 2004 @12:22PM (#8279906)
      Telephone companies have been regulated because they have traditionally been monopolies.

      The main reason is that it simply makes no sense financially for another company to hang wires to the same houses.

      VOIP doesn't have the same financial implications, and will introduce competition, particularly in the long distance markets.

      Television (broadcast - cable and satellite are different animals), on the other hand, uses a finite resource - electromagnetic spectrum. Channel assignments are regulated, which makes sense. I've never been comfortable with content regulation, but that's a discussion for other threads.
      • But the traditional voice circuits are carried over copper or glass, no electromagnetic spectrum required there. Satelite & RF links are rarely used for circuit switched voice anymore, the quality of service over copper wire or glass fiber is better & the high capacity makes costs low. Does that mean my landline phone is not a communications thing? VoIP is also most certainly a commnication thing, but part of the FCC's charter is to encourage communications technology for the common good. There are financial implications, and they are intentionally "unfair". What we have now, at least in the US, is a very uneven playing field. There are different catagories of companies that provide phone service (they are vying for the same consumer dollars) but are treated differently:

        The incumbent landline company is still regulated even though they no longer have the advantage of being a monopoly.

        Non-incumbent landline companies are much less regulated.

        Mobile providers are taxed at a lower rate and are required to supply fewer emergency services (though this is changing).

        VoIP is almost completely unregulated and untaxed. Provides almost no emergency services other than passing the user to the PSTN network.

        VoIP suppliers, and to a lesser extent the non-incumbent landline providers & the mobile service providors, are riding on the coattails of the incumbent landline service providors. They get cheap facilities & services, are held to a lower requirements of service, and are taxed at a lower rate.

        The incumbent is required to lease facilities to competitors at a rate based on the cost of those facilities. Then, when the incumbent needs additional facilities (because it was required to give them to its competitors) they must build new facilities at a higher cost. This puts them at a huge competitive disadvantage, eventhough there are charges applied to other providors that are funnelled to the incumbent (to offset the cost of providing service to everyone, emergency services, inexpensive/free service to schools, libraries & the poor, a higher quality of service. So there are huge financial implications and they are arificially skewed.

        There is reason to favor the new technology, or at least there was. It makes it easier for new services & technologies to develop. However, in my opinion, it's time for VoIP to pay its own way. The technology is there, it has been around for quite some time now. It already makes tremendous sense in some areas e.g. a campus or company with excess data transmission capacity can make use of the spare bandwidth for voice. The hotel I'm in has integrated data & voice facilities, since many travellers to business hotels now require high speed network connections this scheme works well. It's even beginning to make sense to replace traditional switched circuit facilities -- I visit many Central Offices that belong to different telephone companies (wireline & wireless). Almost every CO I've been in recently has VoIP. They aren't tearing out their traditional switches but most have passed the trial stage and are using VoIP for growth now. Expect changes, VoIP will be expected to hold its own soon.
        • I will believe what you say when I see the first monopolist local phone company tell the govt. to "take this job and shove it," and pull out of the market. Think about that, if monopolies were fairly regulated, they'd go out of business or get bought just as often as competitive companies. Wake me up when we get there.

        • Re:Why VOIP is not a communication thing (Score:1, Insightful)

          by Anonymous Coward
          I work for a major telecommunications equipment manufacturer, and I have to say that if the new entrants have an intrinsic advantage, that they are in fact "riding on the coatails" of the incumbents, our customers have yet to discover it. The incumbents control the infrastructure, they have significant influence over the accounting for that infrastructure, and they have established political influence. When even one incumbent goes bankrupt in the way that so many of the new entrants have, then maybe, just m
          • But they do have an intrinsic advantage. They were given it because of the higher risk involved in their business. That's part of the FCC charter, to encourage new technology for the common good.

            What you say is historically true, I agree. But going forward I think it's time to make these new technologies self-sufficient. Not all at once, just gradually.

            RBOCs haven't gone bankrupt, They have valuable infrastructure so they get bought before they can go under.
        • The VOIP that the FCC ruled on is not as you portray it. Free World is simply an organization that helps hand out numbers for voip so people can conviently connect to one another only over VOIP. They offer no service what's so ever that allows you to connect to tranditional phone networks. (Though they do encourge people with VOIP/standard phone systems to let others connect through them for free.) If they did, then they would have to maintain connections to the phone network and money would have to cha
        • Does this mean that companies inside the US will now be able to call me at home using VOIP and skirt the DNC list? Does this also mean that it's now cheap and easy for companies outside the US to call me at home using VOIP, and the FCC can't touch them?

    • Re:Why VOIP is not a communication thing (Score:2, Interesting)

      by Anonymous Coward
      "I think it's just like telephone or TV, no difference."

      The difference being it's a directory service, and doesn't handle VoIP
    • Aside from they "what were they thinking" style questions, here's a little clear thinking that sort of gives you some answers.

      Consider "the telecommunications infrastructure" (ie legacy wires-in-the-ground telcos)
      1. wires-in-the-ground gives them a monopoly so you need to regulate them sharing the wires with other service providers
      2. wires-in-the-ground means it's CHEAP to wire high-density populations so you need to legislate that they must ALSO provide services to LOW density polulations (eg rural communities

    • Re:Why VOIP is not a communication thing (Score:4, Insightful)

      by Crypto Gnome ( 651401 ) on Saturday February 14, 2004 @07:58PM (#8282647) Homepage Journal
      I have a counter argument for you

      In that case, how is VoIP different from recording a message and ataching it in an email? The series of messages sent mack and forth constitute "two or more people talking to each other" so FCC should regulate email.with exactly the same fees and requirements as landlines (because *that's* actually what's at question here)

      Oh and ditto for file-sharing networks because people could be sending back-and-forth MP3s of snippets of conversation. And also Instant Messaging.

      Or even (gasp) The Internet! Every TCP session is a "communication" between two parties - so we need FCC fees and regulations aplying to every single TCP session we create. Obviously we need E911 services (one of the regs which would apply) available for every-single-IP address (ie we need to know EXACTLY where you are physically when you're on the internet at all times)

      Now do you see how simple-minded your thinking is?

      You made the classic mistake of boiling down the definition of "telecommunications" to its most basic brain-dead terms, and then applied that brain-dead definition to an advanced service. Of course you completely forgot that (mathematically speaking) to balance an equation you need to do the same operation to both sides - which would mean applying brain-dead regulations to VoIP (as you have so clearly suggested)
    • It may be that in this case they decided that FWD was an information service because all they provide is a directory service. Once the look up is made, they are out of the picture and the parties connect and communicate on their own.

    • However, I just cannot understand why VOIP is not a communication medium, and why the FCC has to decide whether to impose rule on it or not. It's is another way to transfer voice right?

      If you read the FCC decision you'll see this is how they approached the problem (although the 5 commissioners did not all agree as to the conclusion).

      They decided that Pulver's service (which basically just helps two VOIP endpoints locate each other) is just an internet service, and is not a "telecommunications service." Th

  • Damned English! (Score:3, Funny)

    by SharpFang ( 651121 ) on Saturday February 14, 2004 @12:20PM (#8279890) Homepage Journal
    FCC Rules On Pulver Free World Dialup

    For damn long while I pondered what the hell they mean in the message. World Dialup is Pulver Free, that is Without Pulver. And what does FCC rule on this Pulver Free Word Dialup? The rest wasn't much easier either, until "Pulver.com's"...

    • Re:Damned English! (Score:1, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward
      For damn long while I pondered what the hell they mean in the message. World Dialup is Pulver Free, that is Without Pulver. And what does FCC rule on this Pulver Free Word Dialup? The rest wasn't much easier either, until "Pulver.com's"...

      If they had meant it was lacking Pulver (whatever that is) then it would've been: "FCC Rules on Pulver-Free World Dialup". Since they didn't hyphenate it then that isn't the case. It also doesn't help that Slashdot capitalizes every word in a headline. It's probably "

      • If they had meant it was lacking Pulver (whatever that is)

        That's Pulver as in Jeff Pulver and Free as in beer.
      • Pulver (whatever that is)


        Pulver is Swedish for powder. Since it appears in Swedish I sort of assumed the same word could appear in English, but Merriam-Webster Online didn't recognize it, so I guess not.

        Anyway, when I first read the headline, I wondered what the hell is a powder-free world dialup, or more importantly, what the hell is a dialup that has powder in it. Guess I'll never know.

    • Learn Damned English! (Score:1, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward
      "Pulver Free" in the "Without Pulver" sense would be represented using a hyphen: Pulver-Free.

      HTH!
    • And North Korea, Saudi Arabia, Syria Pakistan and their ilk. A "Free World" dialup.

  • Headline (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday February 14, 2004 @12:20PM (#8279891)
    So I've they'd ruled against them would the headline have been "FCC Sucks On Pulver Free World Dialup"? :)

  • This won't last. (Score:5, Insightful)

    by bryanp ( 160522 ) on Saturday February 14, 2004 @12:20PM (#8279892)
    1) The big Telco's start revamping their systems so that they are giant VOIP systems.
    2) Tax revenues plummet.
    3) Congress says "I don't think so."
    4) Tax laws are amended.
    5) Tax revenues go back up (Govt. version of Profit!)

    No, no ??? line in this one. It's too obvious.

    • Re:This won't last. (Score:1, Interesting)

      by Anonymous Coward
      But what infrastructure will their "giant VOIP systems" work on? That'll still be telecommunications.

    • Re:This won't last. (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Roofus ( 15591 ) on Saturday February 14, 2004 @01:00PM (#8280123) Homepage
      Oooh! I can play! This time I'll be the Cable Operators.

      1) Cable COs see that VOIP competition is eating away at a new market they want to be a major player in.

      2) Said Cable COs roll out DOCSIS 2.0 wih Quality of Service (QoS) provisions.

      3) Cable COs give their VOIP packets highest priority, and everybody else low priority.

      4) Customer calls to complain that their 3rd party VOIP is choppy. Customer service says "We can switch you over to our jitter-free service for only $5 more per month!"

      5) VOIP competition dies.
    • 6) VoIP comapanies move their operations abroad, so that congress can't tax them
      7) Tax revenues plummet.

      Seriously, why does the FCC's opinion on this even matter? Forgive me if theres something about the VoIP system I'm not understanding here, but Free World Dialup is a service something like DNS, so the servers can easily be located outside the US. Taxing the actual peer-to-peer VoIP connections between individual computers is just impossible. Congress is better off letting VoIP providers continue to ru
      • . Taxing the actual peer-to-peer VoIP connections between individual computers is just impossible.

        Never understimate the power of the United States Congress to figure out a way to levy yet another tax. If you want to see a tax revolution in this country, do two things -

        1) Go back to the Pre-WWII payment method, that is do away with automatic withholding. Let everyone get all their money and then make them write a check to the US Govt.

        2) Move election day to the first tuesday after April 15. Gee, T
        • Nothing actually wrong with taxes, assuming we can keep the government using them sensibly (i.e. not on wars for oil). Of course, its nicer when we can have people with too much money anyway carrying the majority of the tax burden, but this doesn't make particularly good PR because 19% of americans believe they are in the richest 1%.

          Anyway, back ontopic: Taxing VoIP connections would be like taxing Gnutella or KaZaA connections. If it could be done, the RIAA would have already gotten a law passed to do i

  • repeat? (Score:2, Informative)

    by plcurechax ( 247883 )
    Of Rewriting Rules on Delivery of the Internet [slashdot.org] and Free World Dialup Under The Gun Again [slashdot.org] and in FCC: 'Pure' VoIP not a phone service [interesting-people.org] and Mr. Pulver to D.C. [interesting-people.org] (David Farber's Interesting People).

  • Of course... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by mgcsinc ( 681597 ) on Saturday February 14, 2004 @12:21PM (#8279902)
    Of course, this doesn't prevent congress from creating a bill that does apply to such services...
    • Yep, only we the people can do that (if you live in the US at least). So keep an eye open and tell your congress critter what you think when the issues some up for a vote.
    • *looks into crystal ball*

      Loss of profit blah blah blah. Campaign contribution... *brown paper envelope rustle*. Laws change.

  • SIPphone (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Swe3tDave ( 246955 ) on Saturday February 14, 2004 @12:38PM (#8279999)
    i got a free SIPphone [sipphone.com] software with my LindowsOS, you have to know someone who his also connected to the SIP network for this to work.. So its useless for me anyway..

    • Re:SIPphone (Score:5, Informative)

      by LostCluster ( 625375 ) * on Saturday February 14, 2004 @12:55PM (#8280093)
      No, this is exactly what Free World Dialup is all about. You get a number assigned to you by Pulver, and that's associated with your SIP connection information. You can then sign up with one of several VoIP-to-PTSN connection companies, and suddenly you have a 10-digit dialable number that leads to your SIP software.

      Of course, you'll have to pay for the VoIP-to-PTSN connect, and that's the service the FCC will regulate, Pulver's number assignment process however is not something that the FCC is going to complain about.

    • Re:SIPphone (Score:2, Interesting)

      by Anonymous Coward
      Sure, you have to join the SIP network, but there are ways to stage dial into the POTS network too.

      The freebie software phone apps, while they do work reasonably well, require a sound card, speakers, mike, or a headset/mic....and some tuning. This seems to turn a lot of people off to the whole thing after fiddling with it for a while.

      Or you can throw down as little as $65 for a real IP phone and just plug it in. That's not a lot of money, and well worth it IMHO, since you don't need to leave a PC running,

    • i got a free SIPphone software with my LindowsOS, you have to know someone who his also connected to the SIP network for this to work.. So its useless for me anyway..

      As has been pointed out, there are pay services where you can connect to the POTS network and make calls. Obviously, these services include provision of a "POTS number" so anyone can dial you. The obvious one is Vonage [vonage.com].

      Now, what a little digging into FWD [freeworldialup.com] will uncover are some free ways to link yourself into the POTS network. No, you

  • another perspective (Score:3, Informative)

    by r5t8i6y3 ( 574628 ) on Saturday February 14, 2004 @12:47PM (#8280053)
    DSL Prime: Telco Cowboys, Mr. Pulver to D.C. [isp-planet.com]

    A rare victory for small business in VoIP should not obscure the fact that DSL competition is fading across America.

    by Dave Burstein
    DSL Prime
    [February 13, 2004]

    "Deliver 100 meg to almost all Americans."
    -- John Cioffi. Ivan Seidenberg of Verizon, Brian Roberts of Comcast, and Bob Blau of BellSouth all recently spoke of moving to 50 and 100 Megs.

    They delayed the FCC meeting this morning, but as this issue is going out Jeff Pulver should be getting miraculous news at Thursday's FCC meeting. None of us believed his Free World Dialup petition had any chance, despite the logic of moving voice to the net. "Mr. Smith"--actually, Mr. Pulver, a small businessman--went to D.C. and convinced officials his cause was right. The phone companies realized they can still game the system and stay ahead, and even the FBI offered to compromise on ruling the internet.

    Friday is also the day for bids on AT&T Wireless, a deal that will probably go down because $300 million in commissions and accelerated options are at stake. Amazing that bids are at $30 billion for an outfit whose profits are negligible and headed negative, and whose management wants to cash out. Buying AWE is essentially a bet spectrum will go up dramatically in price despite the return of the analog TV band, SDR, and the FCC's plan to make more available. It's time for John Wayne CEOs to ride into the sunset.

    Meanwhile, our technology produces everyday miracles. Jef Raskin writes "just gave a talk in Graz, Austria, via iChat AV. Real time voice and video, both ways. We set up the session by discussing it (at no extra cost above my standard DSL line) via audio, video, and text (all simultaneous)." His California Pac Bell connection may soon go to 3 Mbps+ down, 600 Kbps up, making that even easier. Everyone who cares about the user experience should read Jef's The Humane Interface.

    Last week, yet another CEO told me how important the interface is, then showed me something second rate. Imagine if the designer of the Macintosh defined your user experience. Companies like Verizon, (whose install is thankless) or gateway/set top vendors should get it right by bringing in Jef, a friend, or similar talent.

    Martin on Competition "Time now to speak"
    "I'm proud to have stood up for what I believe was right"
    "I'm afraid we may be losing some of the battles" to preserve the competition that currently exists. "Policy-makers in Washington are not debating the benefits of the services you offer," he said. "They are too frequently debating how much of the rules should be eliminated, and how should the changes be made to be more fair to the incumbents."

    "If you have a message to deliver, I think the time is now . . . . Speak now or forever hold your peace. You must now be your own champions." (From Telecommunications Reports)

    Editor's opinion: The right choice is either strong competition or strong regulation. If we don't want direct regulation of telcos' rates and profits, then we need regulation that creates thriving alternatives. Incumbents' economies of scale and financial power allow them to crush others unless curbed. As far as I'm concerned, calls for policies that cripple competitors are also a call for strong government intervention to keep prices down. One day, I'll report a Tauke or a Whitacre call for limiting CLEC access using the headline "Verizon/SBC calls for return to strict rate of return regulation"--the alternative implied if they kill the opposition.

    Telco Cowboys
    Repairmen to John Wayne CEOs
    Ed Whitacre wants to spend $30 billion on AT&T Wireless, building an empire deserving of Ozymandias. He's blind to the AT&T folk desperately looking for an exit, as profit heads towards zero and beneath. Decimated Ameritech has lost $30 billion or more in value, and would have required a career-ending write-off except for an accounting l

  • Sounds cool, just installed Kphone now what? (Score:2, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Kphone is one (only?) linux client. I signed up, got a FWD number, and now no clue what to do next.

    I ran Kphone, and it says it needs Full name, User Part of SIP URL: and Host Part of SIP URL:

    I assume full name is the name I signed up with. But wtf are User/host part of SIP URL?

    BTW, SIP is never explained. No where should someone use an acronym without first explaining it.

    So someone beat with me a clue stick and tell me what to do next and I"ll give you a call ;)

    • What now? I'll tell you what now. (Score:3, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward
      Ok, replying to myself

      On this page it told me what to do:
      http://lists.trolltech.com/qt-interest/2003- 1 0/thr ead01300-0.html

      If you are behind a NAT/Firewall, the configuration
      should look as follows:

      Full Name: 19489
      User Part of SIP URL: 19489
      Host Part of SIP URL: fwd.pulver.com
      Outbound Proxy (Optional): fwdnat.pulver.com:5082
      Authentication Name: 19489

      If you access the Internet directly, donot use
      outbound proxy.

      Here, replace 19489 with your account. You can apply
      for a FWD account from www.fwd.pulver.com.

    • Re:Sounds cool, just installed Kphone now what? (Score:5, Informative)

      by tjansen ( 2845 ) * on Saturday February 14, 2004 @01:34PM (#8280329) Homepage
      1. Note that kphone is more a research project that end-user friendly software. It became much better in the last year though.
      2. The user part is your number, e.g. "17556" (my number). The host part is "fwd.pulver.com". The outbound proxy is "fwdnat.pulver.com:5082" and the authentication username is "17556". If you are on a NAT, you should go to 'SIP Preferences'/'Socket' and set 'Stun server' to yes.
      3. SIP stands for Session Initiation Protocol.

  • The Day I became an Object Noun (Score:5, Interesting)

    by jeffpulver ( 315066 ) on Saturday February 14, 2004 @01:31PM (#8280317) Homepage
    Looking back, this has been one of the best weeks in my life, at least from the perspective of my life experiences in business.

    During the FCC February 2004 Meeting, while agenda item #4, the FWD Petition was being granted, I gave up counting how many times the name "Pulver" was mentioned in the proceeding.

    After thinking about this, I believe we witnessed the transition where my name became an object noun which will be associated with the petition that I filed on behalf of Free World Dialup on February 5, 2003.
  • is there an option for Linux?
    I went all through the site and can not find any mention of Linux. Anyone know what the work around is on this??

  • A little bit of background here (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday February 14, 2004 @02:10PM (#8280530)
    This ruling was awaited, but it is the easiest in the long VoIP cases yet to be judged. FWD is just a signaling/directory service, from what I understand.

    Now consider Vonage [vonage.com] which sells phone service on top of broadband, yet is not registered as a telephone service provider. Or AT&T [att.com] who claims that its VoIP phone-to-phone services are not subject to the same regulation than other phone-to-phone services.

    The key issue yet remaining to be assessed is the question of access charges. These are the cost billed by a local carrier to a long distance carrier, which is much higher than the cost of the very same local leg leased to, say, an individual or a business.

    AT&T, preceded in this regard by many other smaller long-distance carriers are using local business lines to deliver regular phone-to-phone calls on the local market, in order to go around access charges. AT&T claims that because it uses the Internet to carry the calls, they are VoIP and should be free of access charge. Obviously local carriers don't really see it this way...

    My guess is that the FCC wanted to look pro-Internet in this big VoIP debate, so it is ruling now on FWD before they have an opportunity to look at the Vonage ("PC/phone") and AT&T ("phone/phone") cases. These two are much trickier to regulate and their implications, whatever the outcome may be, will be far-reaching.

  • JUST SAY NO TO TAXES (Score:3, Insightful)

    by firstadopter.com ( 745257 ) on Saturday February 14, 2004 @02:23PM (#8280631) Homepage
    It looks like FCC is leaning toward saying VOIP will not be taxed. That is pretty neat, look at your monthly phone bill and see how much we're paying in taxes. Insane.

  • There is a negative side too (Score:4, Insightful)

    by fpn ( 1408 ) on Saturday February 14, 2004 @02:37PM (#8280707)
    Not that I like the large telcos or excessive regulations, but there are many good social services that regular telephone companies are legally required to provide at their expense that these new VoIP companies will not have to provide:

    - Free access and services for the disabled, e.g. speech to text translators for the deaf/mute and hearing/speech impaired as well as mute people. (You call a 1-800 number and a person types what you say into a TTY and tells you what the other person wrote and vice-versa)

    - Cheaper rates for the poor

    - 911 location service - e.g. you have a stroke at your home and call 911 and can't speak, they can still locate you

    and there are quite a few more.

    best regards,
    Florian
    • [...] there are many good social services that regular telephone companies are legally required to provide at their expense that these new VoIP companies will not have to provide:

      Except for maybe the 911 locator, those are good things not to be forced to provide. It's just plain wrong for me to have to pay extra on my line so that someone meeting an arbitrary set of conditions gets either 1) cheaper service or 2) extra services. If you can't pay for a luxury service (and telephone is a luxury, regardles

    • - Cheaper rates for the poor

      Come on people. They're POOR, but you expect them to have
      1. a phoneline (which MY phone costs are already higher so as to help pay for this)
      2. a computer
      3. internet access

      and NOW you want me so pay extra (ie extra AGAIN) so that they can use The Internet for phone calls instead of using the land-line I've already paid extra for them to have?

      I can accept the argument that "the internet" is rapidly becoming such a pervasive part of modern western society that lack of accessibility

      • You agree that sibsidizing poor people's phone lines is a tolerable subsidy, then bitch about voip tarrifs.

        They're the same thing! If you're not paying the surcharge for a phone line because you exclusively use voip, you're hampering the subsidy.

        So, what you end up believing is that poor people should get a bit of help affording their phones, but rich metropolitan technotypes with broadband and voip should be able to dodge their share of the tax.

        Sounds to me like you're the one that's thick as a brick..
  • Does this mean that telemarketing calls to VoIP phones are legal? Uh oh.
  • I have a biiig question, does anyone knowo f any good sip phones besides kphone?

    stuff that doesnt rely on kde or anything besides GTK?

  • Heh.... (Score:2, Funny)

    by Zenmonkeycat ( 749580 )
    I still remember a columnist (with Ziff-Davis, I think) who was considered an ISP by the DOJ. They called him up and wanted him to give them records of who he talked to (some virus author or cracker, IIRC,) since that was his supposed obligation under the law. He told them to go outside and play hide and go f-- uh... f-- um... fetch the subpoena! Yeah.

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Love may laugh at locksmiths, but he has a profound respect for money bags. -- Sidney Paternoster, "The Folly of the Wise"

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