-----Original Message----- From: owner-nanog@merit.edu [mailto:owner-nanog@merit.edu] On Behalf Of Robert Blayzor Sent: March 4, 2005 9:02 PM To: Bill Nash Cc: nanog@nanog.org Subject: Re: US slaps fine on company blocking VoIP
Bill Nash wrote:
At the root of it, it's deliberate anti-competitive behavior, and that's what the fine is for. I'm generally fine to have the government stay out of the internet as much as possible, but this move was the correct one, as it was on behalf of the end consumer. It's not the choice of port blocking that matters, it's the intent.
Wait a minute, since when is the Internet service I provide regulated by ANY entity? It's not, therefore I can run the network any way I see fit. If customers don't like it, they can choose another ISP; if they can't choose another ISP, not my problem, I'm not a regulated entity, you get my service or none at all.
While I don't run my network with that attitude, I certainlly have the right to.
You do? Since when do you (or any ISP, which is fundamentally a corporation like any other) have an exemption to antitrust, fair competition, and every other law regulating business practices? Just because you don't have a regulator setting prices and/or quality standards for your product, like you have in all kinds of sectors (ranging from electricity to automobiles to just about everything), does not mean you are free to run your business "any way you see fit". While you're at it, why not say that since you're an unregulated business that can "run your network any way [you] like", you can prioritize traffic from customers of one ethnic group rather than another? In most sane jurisdictions, a court would tell you that everybody using your "Whatever" service and paying you $Y/month for it must get the same quality of service whether they have black or white skin. Would you scream on NANOG about that, too, and claim that your right to run your network any way you see fit is denied? And guess what, to get back to this issue? Ask an antitrust lawyer. If company A has a quasi-monopoly (or is dominant) in product X, and company A and B both provide product Y, which requires product X (at least for company B's product Y to work), and company A deliberately acts to make sure that company B's product Y cannot work with the product X from company A, they're eventually going to get in trouble. That's the situation here. You need IP transit to do VoIP. Some company with a dominant position in IP transit that also provides phone service is preventing somebody else's VoIP service from working with their IP transit to product their own phone service business. That, under most reasonable fair competition statutes, would be prohibited. "Regulated" industry or not. Vivien (as always, speaking for myself, not any organizations that may appear in the headers)