The UK’s Office of Communications has released the details of new VoIP regulations it is putting in place in the next few months, via the Independent:
Ofcom has established a code of practice for VoIP providers so consumers have more information when subscribing to services. From June, VoIP companies will have to state clearly whether users can access emergency services numbers and the extent to which the service depends on the customer’s home power supply. VoIP providers will also need to inform consumers whether they can keep their phone numbers when switching providers and whether traditional telecoms services such as operator assistance and itemised billing are available.
… Ofcom also said it will open a consultation later this year about whether certain VoIP providers might be forced to offer access to emergency services numbers.
Andy Abramson made a good catch on the AT&T – BellSouth merger. One of the so-called concessions that AT&T made to the FCC to get the deal approved was that it would offer DSL service without requiring customers to have a voice line. But, there’s a catch:
AT&T is limiting the downloads to 768kbps which in today’s era, is not very fast. For example I have "naked" cable and have 12 megs down and one meg up in speed.
This comes as no surprise to us – we’ve had the same issue with Verizon, which claims to offer a 6mbps plan without voice service, which mysteriously never seems to be available for installation in our locations. Oddly, they can install a voice + DSL line at lower speeds for a higher monthly fee. Uh, no thanks.
Abramson continues:
In my mind AT&T should offer a DSL + CallVantage bundle, remove the speed cap and let the DSL fly as fast as it can. That is what the Earthlink offering of DSL and Voice provides. They don’t mess around with speed caps, or try to "arm twist" customers into buying a different plan.
"Wireless world" seems to be a misnomer here, it seems they’re talking more about the Internet-connected world instead:
Canada’s spies risk going "deaf and blind" from the explosion of new wireless and other Internet advances that make it increasingly difficult to intercept terrorist communications, the country’s spymaster warned Friday.
The fast pace of technological advancement, particularly in telecommunications, is harming the ability of national security agents and police to conduct court-approved electronic eavesdropping on suspected terrorists, said Jim Judd, director of the Canadian Security Intelligence Service.
"We increasingly risk going deaf and blind in an environment where telecommunication providers regularly change their systems in the interests of improving service but in the process can literally leave us out of the loop on intercepts," he told a Canadian Association for Security and Intelligence Studies conference in Ottawa.
Judd said the situation will only worsen with the availability of more and more wireless Internet access and Internet-driven phone systems (Voice-over Internet Protocol or VoIP), which are increasingly popular with terrorists who believe those transmissions are more technically difficult to tap.
These folks argue that "net neutrality" regulations aren’t necessary to have a free and competitive Internet:
If you doubt the effectiveness of simple slogans, the current debate over “net neutrality” should change your mind. As the heat of the rhetoric rises, the quality of the information has declined.
On examination, however, one truth is clear: While both sides are prone to hyperbole and exaggeration, net neutrality enthusiasts are also just plain wrong. And the error is dangerous. If the net neutrality proponents prevail, it is less likely the phone and cable companies that operate most of the Internet pipes will have sufficient economic incentives to build needed new capacity.
Net neutrality enthusiasts believe that if Internet service providers (ISPs) are allowed to charge content providers like Google and CNN.com, the ISPs will block Web sites for their own private gain, thus crippling the Internet. Those opposing net neutrality assert the opposite: that pricing freedom is the key to Internet innovation and deployment of the expanded networks needed to handle rapidly growing Internet traffic.
The fact is pricing freedom is a key to the success of the Internet. And existing government oversight, including antitrust authority, is sufficient to rein in any potential anti-competitive behavior in those unlikely circumstances where market forces fail.
It will be interesting to see where this cable VoIP regulation attempt goes:
Missouri utility regulators believe cable voice-over-Internet Protocol service can be subjected to state certification.
The state’s Public Service Commission, acting on a staff complaint, asked Comcast Internet Protocol Phone to explain, by Oct. 26, why it hasn’t applied for a certificate of service authority.
Comcast has already countered the regulator’s demand, filing a federal lawsuit on Oct. 10. The company wants the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Missouri, Central Division, to block the PSC from its attempt to regulate, Comcast senior director of communications and government affairs Sena Fitzmaurice said.
John Van Eschen, manager of the telecommunications department of the PSC, said his staff disagrees with Federal Communications Commission rulemakings barring regulation of VoIP.
In 2004, the FCC held VoIP providers including Vonage and cable companies exempt from state regulation, including demands for certification, tariff filings and 911 requirements. The Minnesota Public Utilities Commission is in the process of appealing that ruling.
Van Eschen said the ruling barring state regulation is based on a Vonage customer’s ability to “plug in anywhere in the broadband world.” Not so with a local cable operator, such as Comcast and Time Warner Cable. Their customers must initiate a call on their plant, located in Missouri.
Fitzmaurice said no other state has attempted to do what Missouri regulators are doing. In fact, in many states, utility regulators have been specifically barred by state law from regulation of VoIP.
Taxes to be applied to VoIP Service:
Wireless and Internet-based phone subscribers will likely face higher bills after federal regulators voted Wednesday to change how those industries help fund communications services for rural areas and the poor.
The Federal Communications Commission approved a measure requiring Internet phone companies such as Vonage Holdings Corp. to contribute for the first time to the Universal Service Fund. Wireless carriers also would have to pay more than they do now, the FCC said.
The $7 billion fund subsidizes telephone service in low-income and high-cost areas and helps connect schools and libraries to the Internet. Traditional phone companies and wireless carriers typically pass the charge on to consumers as a line item on monthly bills.
FCC officials refused to estimate what the change would do to consumers’ bills. But telecom experts predicted that Internet-phone customers who now pay $25 a month will have to pay an extra dollar or two. For cell phone users, the increase should be smaller.
The service fund has faced a looming shortfall after the FCC last year exempted digital subscriber line, or DSL, services that deliver high-speed Internet access over traditional phone lines. That added to pressure on a fund already experiencing increased spending and shrinking revenues.
Telecommunications companies currently must pay 10.9 percent of their revenues from long-distance and international calls into the fund. That proportion is adjusted quarterly and will soon drop to 10.5 percent.
VoIP service technology experts are not pleased:
Federal regulations saying that police must be able to tap into Internet phone conversations with ease are coming under renewed attack from academics, engineers and one of the Net’s founding fathers.
A 21-page study (click for PDF) to be released Tuesday says it’s impossible for the government to expect all products that use voice over Internet protocol, or VoIP, to comply with the Federal Communications Commission’s September 2005 requirement mandating wiretapping backdoors for government surveillance. That requirement is backed by the Bush administration.
The study, organized by the Information Technology Association of America, says that because VoIP relies on a fundamentally different network architecture from that of traditional phone lines, such a mandate would pose "enormous costs" to the industry and could even introduce significant security risks.
The nine contributors included Vint Cerf, Google’s chief Internet evangelist and one of the Net’s founding fathers; Steven Bellovin and Matt Blaze, both prominent computer security professors who specialize in security; Clinton Brooks, a former National Security Agency official; and engineers from Sun Microsystems and Intel.
It would appear that not everybody in VoIP is complaining about the FCC VoIP service wiretap requirements:
Two software vendors have made their IP wiretapping tools for carriers and law-enforcement agencies work together.
Narus’ NarusInsight Intercept Suite for carriers has been fully tested for interoperability with Pen-Link’s Lincoln 2 data collection and reporting software for law enforcement, the companies will announce Tuesday.
The transition on carrier networks from circuit-switched phone calls to IP packet data services has turned the world of wiretapping upside down. With new laws requiring carriers to hand over information about subscribers’ e-mail and Web surfing, carriers and legal agencies need new tools that work with each other.
…The Narus and Pen-Link products are the first to comply with both the ETSI rules and the VoIP CALEA regulations as well as U.S. laws on collecting e-mail and Web data, the companies claim. Specifically, they fully comply with the CALEA T1.678 standard and the ETSI TS 102 232/233/234 standards.
The software is intended for probes, with warrants, of specific users’ traffic during specific periods, Bannerman said.
FCC wins this round:
A U.S. Court of Appeals ruling that upheld the FCC’s decision to apply digital wiretapping rules to VoIP providers probably won’t significantly affect wireless carriers’ broadband wiretap capabilities, according to a CTIA representative.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia this afternoon upheld an FCC decision to require broadband VoIP providers to have wiretapping capabilities in place for law enforcement use.
The decision ostensibly would apply to wireless broadband services, says Mike Altschul, senior vice president and general counsel at CTIA, but wireless carriers already are covered by the Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act (CALEA). VoIP providers haven’t been classified as telecom carriers, so the rules are new to them.
This seems unlikely anytime soon, but it’s important to note, nevertheless:
IT chiefs were have been warned to prepare for the possibility of new corporate governance rules that would require them to keep records of voice-over-IP (VoIP) conversations alongside email, instant messaging and other forms of communication.
Speaking at the Symantec user event in San Francisco last week, Jeremy Burton, a senior vice-president at the security specialist, said, “Financial institutions in the US already need to keep voicemail because it is stored on disk. As soon as the regulators figure out that VoIP is a digital stream, they will probably try to force that to be kept as well.”
Calls would have to be stored in their original audio format, rather than being automatically compressed and indexed using speech-to-text tools, according to Burton, because otherwise lawyers could argue that the original content had been altered. He added that any VoIP archiving legislation is at least two to three years away, but the prospect still alarmed IT managers already struggling to meet existing compliance requirements and manage rapidly expanding data volumes.
Chris Kadwill, ICT manager at Luton Borough Council, said he is resigned to rules demanding VoIP archiving in future. “We have a call centre employing 70 agents that handles over 300,000 telephone calls a year. If we have to record and store all of those, we are talking about many extra terabytes of data,” he added.
Legal experts foresaw other challenges. “There would be an obstacle in recording telephone conversations as that’s unlawful unless certain conditions are met,” said Mike Conradi, head of technology practice at law firm Stephenson Harwood.
