FCC Fines Company for Blocking Access to VoIP

peg0cjs writes "According to PCPro, the FCC has handed out a $15,000 fine to Madison River Communications Corp for blocking access to VoIP calls. The action is seen as a warning to other telcos not to prevent the growth of VoIP over their networks. The complaint was made to the FCC by two companies Vonage Holdings and Nuvio, which specialise in VoIP services. It appears that Vonage CEO Jeffrey Citron was willing to act on his earlier tirade about VoIP blocking." From the article: "The action is seen as a warning to other telcos not to prevent the growth of VoIP over their networks. Many of these companies see VoIP as a threat to their landline revenues as calls made over the internet can be made to anywhere in the world for the price of a local call."

Wait wait wait

[worst_name_ever]

But I thought we hate the FCC! I just don't know what to believe anymore!

VOIP Packets Gain "Special Protected Status"

[Stanistani]

Thanks!
In my next postings I will include encoded voice messages as a series of ASCII tokens.

Better not mod them down, or you'll be fined for impeding competition...

(and yes, this is not meant seriously)

Re:15 grand to a telco company...

[Anonymous Coward]

As a side note, I'm not a parent, so take my example with a grain of salt

Obviously. Any parent knows you use the frying pan first.

Dupe within the article summary itself?

[licamell]

We've seen many dupes lately here on slashdot, so this is a welcome non-dupe, however, anyone else find it weird that in such a short summary there is essentially a dupe of the sentences from the article?

"According to PCPro, the FCC has handed out a $15,000 fine to Madison River Communications Corp for blocking access to VoIP calls. The action is seen as a warning to other telcos not to prevent the growth of VoIP over their networks. The complaint was made to the FCC by two companies Vonage Holdings and Nuvia, which specialise in VoIP services. It appears that Vonage CEO Jeffrey Citron was willing to act on his earlier tirade about VoIP blocking." From the article: "The action is seen as a warning to other telcos not to prevent the growth of VoIP over their networks. Many of these companies see VoIP as a threat to their landline revenues as calls made over the internet can be made to anywhere in the world for the price of a local call."

Re:Fine Money?

[Anonymous Coward]

To buy hammers?

Are all the ISPs blocking Vonage now?

[ulcer_boy]

:P I'm actually guessing Vonage is completely down since multiple people can't ping them right now and my phone just gives me a busy tone when I dial a number. This is great, now I get to rely on Comcast, a Netgear Router, VOIP adapter, and vonage to be able to make a phone call....

Re:Wait wait wait

[JudgeFurious]

I don't know how many times I have to go over this with you people but I'm going to make this sink in if it takes me the rest of my life. On FRIDAYS, after lunch (US, Central time) we like the FCC, if it's an even number day and a story critical of something Apple did earlier in the day is posted while at the same time there are no stories about SCO or the RIAA.

I don't know if a RAMBUS story has any effect on whether or not we like the FCC, give me a few minutes to call somebody and double check the fine print of the Slashdot Manifesto.

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Re:The Hammer

[Anonymous Coward]

VOIP, can't touch that!

Re:smtp, http?

[CoderBob]

I think the difference is that when you signed the TOS for your internet connection, part of that consists of some verbage similar to the follow (your exact milage may vary):

I am your httpd god, and thou shalt not have any other httpd gods before me.

Thou shalt keep holy the smtp server that I have provided.

Thou shalt not kill thy neighbor's bandwidth with thine own ftp service.

I think my old cable connection even included the following:

Thou shalt sacrifice thy first born son in my name, as I am mighty, and thou art but a puny mortal before me.

The biggest difference I can see (and IANAL) is that you agreed to have these things blocked when you signed up with your ISP, whereas this is them deciding to do it "behind the scenes" and in such a manner that they are stifling competition. You hosting a website at home doesn't count as competition in the FCC's eyes.

It sucks, yeah, but the difference is that they aren't stiffling innovation here, they're setting terms of what you can host on your local machine. Hosting anything can cause tremendous bandwidth usage, much more so than making a VoIP call. And imagine the uproar if someone was running an open-relay smtp service on an IP that belonged to an ISP...lawyer's would probably need something to clean up with once the shock of how many lucrative lawsuits were available wore off.

VOIP = ISP charge per packet?

[pentalive]

Phonecompanyisp: Block VOIP, no one is using our phone services anymore.

FCC: Nope can't do that, Won't let ya.

PhoneCompanyISP: Ok, Charge $.0002 per each packet.

PostOffice: Hey give us $.0001 per packet because no one sends regular mail anymore!

User: What!! $18.00 Dial up
$18.00 90,000 packets @ .0002 each
$36.00 total.

(bill used to only be $18.00)

Re:15 grand to a telco company...

[SirGeek]

Obviously. Any parent knows you use the frying pan first.

A 12" Lodge by prefrence.

Is there REALLY any other REAL cast iron frying pan than a lodge ? ( and now that you can get them pre-seasoned, you have no excuse to not own one )...