On 12/15/05, Hannigan, Martin <hannigan@verisign.com> wrote:

But isn't that the point. You can't guarantee delivery, just as you can't guarantee you won't get a busy signal when you make a call.

Absolutely. But if the carrier tunes their network so you will never get a busy signal when calling into 900 numbers from which they receive a kickback (hosted on their network or just "preferred partners"), at the cost of a greater likelihood of busy signals for calls which are not as profitable for them, this is "enforcing the provider's preferences and not the customers". When carriers start to tune their network so not only do VOIP connections to their own servers get a higher QoS, but also in a manner which tends to *induce* jitter and other 'Q'uality degradation for Skype and Vonage, then it's time for them to lose "common carrier" protection. Kevin Kadow -- Disclaimer: I no longer am a contractor for SBC, nor any _for-profit_ ISP.