VoIP finds foreign friends and adversaries

Internet phone provider Vonage has all but tapped Singapore to start its expansion into Asia later this year.

The primary attraction? Singapore's utility regulators are "very friendly" to Net phone operators, Vonage Chief Financial Officer John Rego said during a recent interview. So too are public utility officials in Japan and Korea, which are also on Vonage's radar screen, Rego added.

As the New Jersey-based company's experience shows, U.S. Internet phone operators expanding beyond the hypercompetitive U.S. market are finding a world divided between nations that very much welcome foreign Net phone operators and those that don't.

Since 2001, that distinction has helped steer a sizable percentage of the $1.6 billion invested in Vonage and other voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) providers to Western Europe, North America, Singapore, Korea and Japan, where intense competition is keeping phone prices low and innovation high.

But for every nation friendly to VoIP carriers from other countries, there's one like Mexico. When foreign telephone companies first attempted to sell overseas phone calls in Mexico, the local monopoly phone company allegedly fought back by cutting network cables. Decades later, Mexico's dominant carrier, Telmex, is allegedly resorting to another series of strong-arm tactics to crush competition from IP providers by sifting through Internet traffic to block commercial VoIP calls. A Telmex spokesman did not respond to a request for comment.

Also considered very much off-limits because of unfriendly regulators, or an all-powerful monopoly incumbent, are India, Panama and Qatar.

"It's very important now for a regulatory structure to fit," Rego said. "Anyone with a real entrenched incumbent, where telephony infrastructure is controlled by government, or a place like India, where it's controlled by the country, just don't want us to be doing it at the moment."

Telmex's practices most recently have attracted the attention of U.S. officials and prospective competitors over current accusations that the company is blocking broadband access to Telmex customers whom it suspects are using their Internet service to make VoIP calls.

"We are posing this question: If a company is port blocking, it's clearly a form of discrimination, but do you think this is appropriate?" said a U.S. trade official, speaking on condition of anonymity.

"Some international operators believe it's their broadband connection, so if someone wants voice over it, they need to use my service. We're very interested in learning if Mexico and others believe this is legitimate."

TELMEX OFFICIAL REPLY (VOICE OVER IP).

FACT 1
" Infinitum service is designed to provide Internet access at the best possible quality of service module or Best-Effort (BE) as it is known worldwide, in which there is no mechanical implementation that differentiate services or applications.
" This is the way the Internet was originally conceived, based on the delivery of best-effort data, point-by-point.
" Infinitum is not designed to distinguish traffic types or priorities. All of the data packages are treated equally.
" Infinitum service will be provided without a commitment value in certain parameters like in the case of percentage losses in the database, jitter, delays, etc.
" We cannot guarantee continuous functioning under this definition of net in real time applications, like remote video, multimedia conferences, Internet voice or virtual reality, because of variable delays and the potential loss that naturally occurs in the Internet.

FACT 2
" All ports are open in the Infinitum service.
" Firewalls on the customers side can cause that certain applications cannot use some of the ports.
" Telmex does not block any sites.
" Like all of the major ISPs of the world, a DNS degradation caused by worms, request an explosion of information and will temporarily compromise the service.

FACT 3
" PTP (Peer-to-Peer )traffic deteriorates the user experience and can cause congestion to Internet access.
" The congestion caused by P2P is because of the use of applications like: Kazza, Edonkey, Bittorrent, Limewire, Morpheus, Emule, etc,
" P2P will radically change traffic behavior.
" P2P increases operator costs on traffic and Internet capacity.
" P2P complicates Internet planning.
" P2P prevents the development of sensitive services to quality services
" (QoS)(VoIP)
" Infinitum service has experienced enourmus P2P traffic explosion. That is very similar to the one experienced by European operators: P2P traffic can variate between60%-80% of the total.
" In the U.S., traffic fluctuation is between 60% to 65%
" 10% of customers consume 80% of the available bandwidth .
It is not only what customers´ download from the Internet (perceptible to them), it is also what other consumers are downloading in other PC´s (not perceptible), what consumes all of the customer´savailable bandwidth. .
" The impact on Internet traffic on P2P applications is not only measured by the amount and file size exchanged, but also by the process involved in this system.
" All equipment connected to these applications establish constant communication and are victims of the process of other equipments searching also for files and because of this, the equipment is permanently emitting information.
" It is even worse when a customer decides to configure a PC as Supernode that absorbs all of the available bandwidth.

FACT 4

" The unpredictable and continuous worm attack, and SPAM has grown out of proportion
" Worms like MyDoom and Bagle (the Troyan like Phatbol) give control of the equipment to Hackers. This huge net of zombies and compromised equipment (so-called Botnets) can be used for SPAM distribution or used as a platform for DDos attacks (denial of service) throughout the Internet.
" SPAMERS use these mechanisms to hide their real IP addresses.
" A huge amount of SPAM (between 60% to 80%) is originated in SPAM ZOMBIES.
" When you have a large group of equipment carrying out these attacks, it is very difficult to locate the origin of these attacks and solve them in real time , without causing massive interference on other Internet operations and to real and legitimate users.

FACT 5
The challenge for the major ISP´s is:
" Introduce control mechanisms without creating Internet delays.
" Face constant traffic growth, risk of degradation of the service and the Internet costs related to P2P traffic.

FACT 6
" For Infinitum service we have not implemented a technology that will make the prioritization of some Internet services possible. Eventually, we will evolve in this direction in order to provide and guarantee the provision and charge of these services.
" Eventually, we will offer Internet services with a different commitment QoS (Quality of service), with a SLA mechanism (service level agreements).
" In order to support services with Real time quality, we need to modify the infrastructure to follow up with these Internet characteristics from beginning to end.
" We will acquire the capacity to control the distribution of Internet bandwidth for each user with different types of traffic. Therefore, we need to divide total traffic in different categories and assign a minimum percentage of total bandwidth to each one, under high usage and congestion conditions.
" These different kinds of traffic can represent different kinds of users and protocols.
" In a Net with these characteristics, the cost for the use of this particular service will be higher than the traditional best-effort transfer.

FACT 7
" Recent surveys reflect that Infinitum is a product with the highest satisfaction index that is above average of the G-8 Group members.
" Our commitment is to offer our customers with the best bandwidth service and we constantly improve the infrastructure introduce new benefits and enhance capacity.

ANNEX.

Clauses from the contract between the user and Prodigy INFINITUM.
SEVENTH. POLICIES OF INTERNET USE.

The use of the SERVICE as a Customer, implies the acceptance and conformity of the following:

" The customer is aware of the nature of the INTERNET and its limitations, its technical qualities and the response time to consult, question, or transfer data and information.
" Social, political cultural, among other events, can sometimes cause that the use of the INTERNET to increase significantly affecting optimal operational conditions., causing a temporary saturation that creates a delay in the Service.
" The customer understands that the Internet is a net in a net of networks, and the paralyzation of one of these nets can cause temporary saturation that slows down Service.
" TELMEX will not be held responsible for any damage or loss of information by the customer, caused by configuration, delays, non-delivery, failed deliveries, errors or Service interruption.
" The customer recognizes that any information, product or service available through the INTERNET, different from those provided by TELMEX, are provided by other users or other parties, which are responsible of supporting or maintaining their information, products or services.

TELMEX OFFICIAL REPLY (VOICE OVER IP).

FACT 1
" Infinitum service is designed to provide Internet access at the best possible quality of service module or Best-Effort (BE) as it is known worldwide, in which there is no mechanical implementation that differentiate services or applications.
" This is the way the Internet was originally conceived, based on the delivery of best-effort data, point-by-point.
" Infinitum is not designed to distinguish traffic types or priorities. All of the data packages are treated equally.
" Infinitum service will be provided without a commitment value in certain parameters like in the case of percentage losses in the database, jitter, delays, etc.
" We cannot guarantee continuous functioning under this definition of net in real time applications, like remote video, multimedia conferences, Internet voice or virtual reality, because of variable delays and the potential loss that naturally occurs in the Internet.

FACT 2
" All ports are open in the Infinitum service.
" Firewalls on the customers side can cause that certain applications cannot use some of the ports.
" Telmex does not block any sites.
" Like all of the major ISPs of the world, a DNS degradation caused by worms, request an explosion of information and will temporarily compromise the service.

FACT 3
" PTP (Peer-to-Peer )traffic deteriorates the user experience and can cause congestion to Internet access.
" The congestion caused by P2P is because of the use of applications like: Kazza, Edonkey, Bittorrent, Limewire, Morpheus, Emule, etc,
" P2P will radically change traffic behavior.
" P2P increases operator costs on traffic and Internet capacity.
" P2P complicates Internet planning.
" P2P prevents the development of sensitive services to quality services
" (QoS)(VoIP)
" Infinitum service has experienced enourmus P2P traffic explosion. That is very similar to the one experienced by European operators: P2P traffic can variate between60%-80% of the total.
" In the U.S., traffic fluctuation is between 60% to 65%
" 10% of customers consume 80% of the available bandwidth .
It is not only what customers´ download from the Internet (perceptible to them), it is also what other consumers are downloading in other PC´s (not perceptible), what consumes all of the customer´savailable bandwidth. .
" The impact on Internet traffic on P2P applications is not only measured by the amount and file size exchanged, but also by the process involved in this system.
" All equipment connected to these applications establish constant communication and are victims of the process of other equipments searching also for files and because of this, the equipment is permanently emitting information.
" It is even worse when a customer decides to configure a PC as Supernode that absorbs all of the available bandwidth.

FACT 4

" The unpredictable and continuous worm attack, and SPAM has grown out of proportion
" Worms like MyDoom and Bagle (the Troyan like Phatbol) give control of the equipment to Hackers. This huge net of zombies and compromised equipment (so-called Botnets) can be used for SPAM distribution or used as a platform for DDos attacks (denial of service) throughout the Internet.
" SPAMERS use these mechanisms to hide their real IP addresses.
" A huge amount of SPAM (between 60% to 80%) is originated in SPAM ZOMBIES.
" When you have a large group of equipment carrying out these attacks, it is very difficult to locate the origin of these attacks and solve them in real time , without causing massive interference on other Internet operations and to real and legitimate users.

FACT 5
The challenge for the major ISP´s is:
" Introduce control mechanisms without creating Internet delays.
" Face constant traffic growth, risk of degradation of the service and the Internet costs related to P2P traffic.

FACT 6
" For Infinitum service we have not implemented a technology that will make the prioritization of some Internet services possible. Eventually, we will evolve in this direction in order to provide and guarantee the provision and charge of these services.
" Eventually, we will offer Internet services with a different commitment QoS (Quality of service), with a SLA mechanism (service level agreements).
" In order to support services with Real time quality, we need to modify the infrastructure to follow up with these Internet characteristics from beginning to end.
" We will acquire the capacity to control the distribution of Internet bandwidth for each user with different types of traffic. Therefore, we need to divide total traffic in different categories and assign a minimum percentage of total bandwidth to each one, under high usage and congestion conditions.
" These different kinds of traffic can represent different kinds of users and protocols.
" In a Net with these characteristics, the cost for the use of this particular service will be higher than the traditional best-effort transfer.

FACT 7
" Recent surveys reflect that Infinitum is a product with the highest satisfaction index that is above average of the G-8 Group members.
" Our commitment is to offer our customers with the best bandwidth service and we constantly improve the infrastructure introduce new benefits and enhance capacity.

ANNEX.

Clauses from the contract between the user and Prodigy INFINITUM.
SEVENTH. POLICIES OF INTERNET USE.

The use of the SERVICE as a Customer, implies the acceptance and conformity of the following:

" The customer is aware of the nature of the INTERNET and its limitations, its technical qualities and the response time to consult, question, or transfer data and information.
" Social, political cultural, among other events, can sometimes cause that the use of the INTERNET to increase significantly affecting optimal operational conditions., causing a temporary saturation that creates a delay in the Service.
" The customer understands that the Internet is a net in a net of networks, and the paralyzation of one of these nets can cause temporary saturation that slows down Service.
" TELMEX will not be held responsible for any damage or loss of information by the customer, caused by configuration, delays, non-delivery, failed deliveries, errors or Service interruption.
" The customer recognizes that any information, product or service available through the INTERNET, different from those provided by TELMEX, are provided by other users or other parties, which are responsible of supporting or maintaining their information, products or services.

[phones4skype]

It happens in New Zealand as well

Telecom NZ have publicly stated that the UBS service they offer specifically excludes VoIP traffic.

[phones4skype]

It happens in New Zealand as well

Telecom NZ have publicly stated that the UBS service they offer specifically excludes VoIP traffic.

It s not Just

***These are purely comments that are based on the subject and other comments/views mentioned on this website. I, intentionally or unintentionally do not have any bias towards any party and that this is just a expression of though that bears no responsibility or accountability for any damage that had or might have had caused by reading and /or interpreting it. Any such thign that happen should be treated purely as coincidental and should attract no penalty or any damage of any kind.***
***************************************
Firstly, it needs to be understood by the parties who intend to stop voice passing thru the data line, that the voice is still coming in the form of data, which is beneficial for them, since as of now, the connectivity is still being charged by the amount of data used but not a standard charge for unlimited usage. It would have been ok to restrict if the connectivity charges are charged as a standard for unlimited usage, in which case the connectivity provider will incur charges on behalf of the user, this case is understandable.
Assuming that the internet charges in mexico are either based on data usage or a combination of standard tarrif + a incremental data usage, I dont still see a point why they need to stop voange kind of services. Infact such service adds revenue to the service providers by generating more data at the user end. Well, if service providers feels that they are loosing out an opportunity just because of not being able to tap into it, or if they feels that they could do nothing to stop it, then they should looks for ways to exploit the opportunity than cutting away the lines.

Counter arguement from service providers side could be that this service could eat away into their International long distance revenue.

"But it should be noted that these are SERVICES and they are free to be offered and used by any individual across the world, with out having a bias depending on the location. E.g. If shopping on the internet and physical delivery of goods is being permitted in mexico then why not a service like this. Its some thing like buying a dress from the US store on the internet and the store owner shippng it to mexico. In the case of clothes it is understood that dresses are a comodity and that dress Industry is not regulated. But for getting the dress into mexico from US and making a home delivery there are aprropriate charges that the buyer is willing to pay. similarly, in the case of vonage like services, if the cusotmer is willing to pay for all the charges that are leveied by the service provider yet use services like vongae then there is no point in stopping. In such a case it would be better if the service providers makes its International call prices more competitive than cutting off lines. It needs to be understood that service providers would be hurting themselves than companies like vonage.

Secondly, timeliness of adopting these services is talked quiet often in countries who do not wish to offer such services, in such cases, the country that is opposing, would be left over in the race in terms of developing telecommunications since no other country will stop or wait for the opposing countries to support.

Importnatly, it makes sense for the oppoosing countries to opporse, only if there is a global policy, that specifies that all the countries stop such services or restrict them to their own country boundaries, if not then vonage kinda companies mushroom in all countries where such services are permitted and accepted and such companies start to exert pressure on the countries that are not open to such services. At that point in time these countries that are late will have no option to exploit the opportunity but need to just facilitate the services. Further by just becoming facilitators the profits or the money made in the game will be accured mostly to the outsde players than to the player in the country if any. Hence these opposing countries are contributing to one more factor that is detrimental to the development of the domestic companies that wish to offer such services. if they restrict and eventually open they domestic players would be lost in the competition from the international players, since the international players would have already mastered the art of offering the services and would have been miles forward than the domestic players.

So in light of these arguements service providers or regulating bodies should be concentrating on exploiting the opportunity of/by new services, than trying to either eliminate or curb it from flourishing.


Thanks,

Ravi

It s not Just

***These are purely comments that are based on the subject and other comments/views mentioned on this website. I, intentionally or unintentionally do not have any bias towards any party and that this is just a expression of though that bears no responsibility or accountability for any damage that had or might have had caused by reading and /or interpreting it. Any such thign that happen should be treated purely as coincidental and should attract no penalty or any damage of any kind.***
***************************************
Firstly, it needs to be understood by the parties who intend to stop voice passing thru the data line, that the voice is still coming in the form of data, which is beneficial for them, since as of now, the connectivity is still being charged by the amount of data used but not a standard charge for unlimited usage. It would have been ok to restrict if the connectivity charges are charged as a standard for unlimited usage, in which case the connectivity provider will incur charges on behalf of the user, this case is understandable.
Assuming that the internet charges in mexico are either based on data usage or a combination of standard tarrif + a incremental data usage, I dont still see a point why they need to stop voange kind of services. Infact such service adds revenue to the service providers by generating more data at the user end. Well, if service providers feels that they are loosing out an opportunity just because of not being able to tap into it, or if they feels that they could do nothing to stop it, then they should looks for ways to exploit the opportunity than cutting away the lines.

Counter arguement from service providers side could be that this service could eat away into their International long distance revenue.

"But it should be noted that these are SERVICES and they are free to be offered and used by any individual across the world, with out having a bias depending on the location. E.g. If shopping on the internet and physical delivery of goods is being permitted in mexico then why not a service like this. Its some thing like buying a dress from the US store on the internet and the store owner shippng it to mexico. In the case of clothes it is understood that dresses are a comodity and that dress Industry is not regulated. But for getting the dress into mexico from US and making a home delivery there are aprropriate charges that the buyer is willing to pay. similarly, in the case of vonage like services, if the cusotmer is willing to pay for all the charges that are leveied by the service provider yet use services like vongae then there is no point in stopping. In such a case it would be better if the service providers makes its International call prices more competitive than cutting off lines. It needs to be understood that service providers would be hurting themselves than companies like vonage.

Secondly, timeliness of adopting these services is talked quiet often in countries who do not wish to offer such services, in such cases, the country that is opposing, would be left over in the race in terms of developing telecommunications since no other country will stop or wait for the opposing countries to support.

Importnatly, it makes sense for the oppoosing countries to opporse, only if there is a global policy, that specifies that all the countries stop such services or restrict them to their own country boundaries, if not then vonage kinda companies mushroom in all countries where such services are permitted and accepted and such companies start to exert pressure on the countries that are not open to such services. At that point in time these countries that are late will have no option to exploit the opportunity but need to just facilitate the services. Further by just becoming facilitators the profits or the money made in the game will be accured mostly to the outsde players than to the player in the country if any. Hence these opposing countries are contributing to one more factor that is detrimental to the development of the domestic companies that wish to offer such services. if they restrict and eventually open they domestic players would be lost in the competition from the international players, since the international players would have already mastered the art of offering the services and would have been miles forward than the domestic players.

So in light of these arguements service providers or regulating bodies should be concentrating on exploiting the opportunity of/by new services, than trying to either eliminate or curb it from flourishing.


Thanks,

Ravi

Telmex's issues are understandable

With all due respects and importance to the facts mentioned by Telmex, these are just my views.

All the facts that are mentioned in the official message of Telmex's are understandable, but may be they could be categorized as "manageable issues", like settling problems takes place after a mojor development. They are still not at the policy level. But what should be put to thought is, if such services are accpeted as policy but with restrictions, like fulfiling all the conditions on the facts like, QOS, control etc, mentioned by Telmex, then there is scope for developing the services into full, formal and proper services that can benefit the customer there by expanding the girth of the telecom domain and encourages new developments. Stopping Instead discourages development.

Telmex's issues are understandable

With all due respects and importance to the facts mentioned by Telmex, these are just my views.

All the facts that are mentioned in the official message of Telmex's are understandable, but may be they could be categorized as "manageable issues", like settling problems takes place after a mojor development. They are still not at the policy level. But what should be put to thought is, if such services are accpeted as policy but with restrictions, like fulfiling all the conditions on the facts like, QOS, control etc, mentioned by Telmex, then there is scope for developing the services into full, formal and proper services that can benefit the customer there by expanding the girth of the telecom domain and encourages new developments. Stopping Instead discourages development.