91–93 of 93 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
My guess is Google is gearing up to do to VoIP what it did with email.
"gearing up"? You can use GTalk since 2005. It's available to anyone with a gmail address. And you get free GTalk-to-GTalk calls.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> This isn't a net neutrality issue. Of course it is. Packets should be packets, if you don't have the network to handle the packets, lower caps or raise prices, don't start making people pay based on the kind of packets they send or receive. It is precisely a NN issue. > " We need to start clamping down a little" issue (I imagine) "Clamping down a little" is not a problem, "clamping down on (VOIP|Gaming|long-lived d…
> if you don't have the network to handle the packets, lower caps or raise prices, don't start making people pay based on the kind of packets they send or receive. > "clamping down on (VOIP|Gaming|long-lived downloads|P2P streams)" is P2P streams and long-lived downloads have two major things in common: heavy bandwidth over long periods of time. Those activities, in particular, are considerably heavier on the network…
> Is that still 'net neutrality'?
If you disallow specific network activities, yes it's a network neutrality issue.
> users are not allowed to download files more than 10MB in size
I do not believe that is correct. The AppStore application is configured to not download applications over 20MB (up from 10MB since February) over 3G, and the iTunes application does the same thing for music or podcasts, but that's a setting at the application level. I don't think e.g. Safari refuses to download files more than 10 (or 20) MB, or that the connection cuts off with a corrupted file.
> That isn't a case of "what" a person can download, but instead an issue of "how much" a person can download in a small period of time.
No, because again you're disallowing specific activities (e.g. VOIP, P2P) not certain network behaviors (data streams of over 1MB for over 10mn for instance). Therefore your network management is about activities (traffic shaping) not resources (resources management) which makes it an NN issue. Because you're arbitrarily preventing the users of the network from performing specific activities even though the network itself can handle them.
> This is under the presupposition that the price increase was ATT's doing, and they're not doing it because it's taking away from their profits; but instead they're fearing that VOIP will cause an even greater tax on their already strained network.
I don't believe that for a second, but again if the issue is resources, then write policies in terms of resources, not activities.
I'm not bothered by this, because it's their funeral. There are other VoIP programs, it's not particularly difficult to write one, and with Android set to dominate open-architecture 3G phones, something else will dominate VoIP. Hopefully, something open source and using an open protocol. (SIP?) Oh and if you bought an iPhone and can't access the cost-free VoIP solution? That'll teach you to buy locked-down hardware,…
It's not easy to create a competitor to Skype. Skype's main attraction is not the technology, but the network effect and it's closed system. You could make a cool SIP client for Android/iPhone/etc. but it wouldn't matter because you wouldn't be able to talk to 90% of the mundane's who only have Skype.
I agree. Having said that, it's not difficult to change to another system. I'm a member of an organisation that has weekly VoIP conferences. We used to use Skype, but that proved problematic when more than 5 people were involved. So we (fairly painlessly) moved to another solution. Other people, if they find Skype painful, will move too.