Tom DeReggi wrote:
The difference here is that you currently appear to offer adequate QOS
on your network design to offer a better Quality service. Many WISPs
do NOT. Because they went after a different market that did not
require it. And many of them will likely not beable to upgrade their
networks adequately to cater to requirements to deliver Net Neutrality
as some legislation suggests the problem get solved. Which could
result in large loss of clients and failure of businesses. I'm not
necessarilly against Net Neutrality. I just need to know that certain
special interests such as Wireless and small providers are looked out
for and not just bundled in with the profiles of the large carriers,
Ilecs, cable co, and National CLECS.
Markets change and business that won't or can't adapt deserve to lose.
We should not have regulation designed to protect business models that
no longer make sense. For example, I don't think we should help the
airlines out when they run out of money. If some airlines can operate
profitably then there is no reason to help out ones that can't.
The other thing is that I believe it is foolish to think that you will
always deliver better QOS. Maybe you do today, I don;t challenge that.
But the jsut because the Vonages of the world are cheap, does not
necessarilly make them a less reliable provider. The Vonages of the
world are the largest threats to third party VOIP providers, jsut lije
giant Cable companies are threats to Independant ISPs, and Microsoft
is to Operating system developers. Vonage has scaled huge, and that
gives them an economy of scale to be capable of delivering better
value. They also have more money to hire better people to design
better systems, etc. It doesn't mean they have done it today, but the
possibilty is there.
Vonage might be bigger, have better people, and more cash, but their
service will never be higher quality that ours because we own the
network. Vonage's service might be good enough (I don't think it is),
but it will never be better until they have end-to-end control.
So let me go as far as saying, maybe it is wrong for a provider to
prioritize delivery of its product over another providers, after
further thought. An ISP can jsutify the higher QOS of its self
provided VOIP services, based on number of hops to VOIP gateway. If my
VOIP gateway rtesides on my network, with a engineered path, I know
its likely going to perform better than someone using a VOIP service
that travels the INternet to the VOIP gateway without the abilty to
deliver QOS. MAybe this will turn into a situation like Google cache
appliances, or edge Web caching appliances, where the VOIP providers
pay you to host their VOIP gateways to get shortest path the
Subscriber/VOIP Phone user?
VoIP gateways closer to the customer is certainly one way to address the
problem. I would expect the Akamais of the world to be looking into this.
But what needs to be made inevidably clear in any Net Neutrality
legislation, is that a Network Provider must never be prevented from
taking actions that will allow them to fix or deliver the QOS or
EXPERIENCE to its customers, that they are contractually obligated to
deliver to its subscribers, not necessarilly speed, capacity or
commited rates. Network providers can not fear LEGAL RECOURCE every
time they go to manage their network.
Certainly the government can force you to modify the contracts you have
with your customers. See the 911 problems all the VoIP providers are having.
-Matt
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