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FCC Fines Telecom Co For VoIP Blocking |
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FCC Fines Telecom Co For Internet Phone Blocking
March 3, 2005
By Brian Blackstone
WASHINGTON -- The Federal Communications Commission on Thursday fined rural telecommunications and Internet services company Madison River Communications LLC $15,000 for blocking Internet phone service.
In addition to paying the penalty, Madison agreed not to block voice over Internet protocol, or VOIP, phone traffic from providers such as Vonage Holdings Corp.
Vonage notified the FCC of the issue last month.
"We saw a problem, and we acted swiftly to ensure that Internet voice service remains a viable option for consumers," said FCC Chairman Michael K. Powell.
Though the dollar amounts are small and the blocking affected only a few hundred Vonage customers, the FCC's decision has much larger symbolic impact. VOIP providers like Vonage depend on other companies' DSL and cable platforms to provide their service, which offers nationwide unlimited long-distance service for a flat fee. Thursday's action is the FCC's first on Internet phone blocking.
"The good news here is this sends a clear signal to the broadband industry that the FCC will not tolerate interfering with your right to communicate with one another," Jeffrey Citron, Vonage's chief executive, told Dow Jones Newswires.
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Posted by vonage on Sunday, March 06 @ 00:00:00 UTC
(609 reads)
Read More: FCC Fines Telecom Co For VoIP Blocking
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Telco Agrees To Stop Blocking Vonage VoIP Service |
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Telco Agrees To Stop Blocking VoIP Calls
March 3, 2005
By Declan McCullagh
A North Carolina telecommunications company accused of deliberately blocking Internet phone traffic has reached a deal with federal regulators to halt the controversial practice.
The Federal Communications Commission said Thursday that Madison River Communication will "refrain from blocking" VoIP, or voice over Internet Protocol, calls and will pay a $15,000 fine to the government.
"We saw a problem, and we acted swiftly to ensure that Internet voice service remains a viable option for consumers," FCC Chairman Michael Powell said in a statement. The consent decree prevents Madison River from VoIP blocking for 30 months.
Based in Mebane, N.C., Madison River reported $194.4 million in revenue for the 2004 calendar year from 120,649 residential voice subscribers, 60,563 business voice subscribers, and 39,562 DSL customers. The company has filed a registration statement for a proposed initial public offering.
VoIP provider Vonage confirmed that Madison River was the broadband provider it complained to the FCC about earlier this month, leading to the FCC's investigation.
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Posted by vonage on Saturday, March 05 @ 21:00:14 UTC
(621 reads)
Read More: Telco Agrees To Stop Blocking Vonage VoIP Service
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Vonage Victorious In Port Blocking Case |
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Vonage Victorious In Port Blocking Case
March 3, 2005
By Staff
A couple weeks ago we reported that ISP Madison River Communications was blocking ports used for VoIP applications. Vonage filed suit and has walked away a winner.
Last month, the Enforcement Bureau issued a Letter of Inquiry (“LOI”) to Madison River Communication, LLC initiating an investigation about allegations that Madison River was blocking ports used for VoIP applications, thereby affecting customers’ ability to use VoIP through one or more VoIP service providers.
The ruling concluded that Madison River is required to make a voluntary payment to the United States Treasury in the amount of fifteen thousand dollars ($15,000.00). In order to resolve and terminate the Investigation, the Bureau also requires that Madison River shall not block ports used for VoIP applications or otherwise prevent customers from using VoIP applications.
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Posted by vonage on Saturday, March 05 @ 18:55:38 UTC
(605 reads)
Read More: Vonage Victorious In Port Blocking Case
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Free Vonage Service For Oscar Presenters and Performers |
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Wired Report
March 3, 2005
By Staff
Fatigue was the word frequently heard around this year’s Oscars, according to an article in last week’s New York Times. And I could not agree more. The award shows have been squeezed into a one month time period, making it impossible to savor each one. And there are no longer surprises. How many times can you see the same person win the same award and not be fatigued by it?
This was one of the reasons why the irreverent Chris Rock was chosen to host and it was just about the best part of the whole show last Sunday night (with the exception of Joan and Melissa, of course). Despite the reviews which have been slamming him all week, I think he did an amazing job. He was hilarious when he interviewed black moviegoers who loved the Wayans brothers’ comedy 'White Chicks' but hadn't seen best-picture nominees, 'The Aviator' or 'Finding Neverland.' His Bush bashing jokes were brilliant. And his jab at Jude Law as a second-rank star was a breath of fresh air. The very significant Sean Penn who “claims” to hate being the center of the media’s attention, had no problem speaking up with the pompous comment that Jude Law 'is one of our finest actors,' before he announced Hilary Swank as best-actress winner for 'Million Dollar Baby.'
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Posted by vonage on Saturday, March 05 @ 00:22:01 UTC
(1773 reads)
Read More: Free Vonage Service For Oscar Presenters and Performers
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Engadget Giving Away Free Vonage |
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It’s Our Birthday, And We’re Giving You The Presents
March 3, 2005
By Peter Rojas
Hey, it’s our first birthday today and to celebrate we’re giving away a year’s worth of Vonage’s broadband telephone service.
Winning one of these fine prizes is easy: just tell us what’s your favorite Engadget post of the past year. It can be anything, a regular post, an interview, a how-to, a review, or whatever, just paste up a link to it along with a couple of lines about why it’s your fave and we’ll pick nine winners at random from among the entries (and it’ll be random who gets which prize). You have until noon on Sunday to enter, ok?
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Posted by vonage on Friday, March 04 @ 21:00:00 UTC
(805 reads)
Read More: Engadget Giving Away Free Vonage
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FCC Slaps Fine On Blocker Of Vonage VoIP |
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FCC Slaps Fine On VoIP-Blocking Telecom
March 3, 2005
By Roy Mark
The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) today fined a North Carolina telecom holding company $15,000 for blocking Voice over IP (define) calls to their customers.
In addition to the fine, Madison River Communications of Mebane, N.C., agreed to refrain from blocking VoIP traffic and to put measures into place to ensure that such blocking won't happen again.
"We saw a problem, and we acted swiftly to ensure that Internet voice service remains a viable option for consumers," outgoing FCC Chairman Michael K. Powell said in a statement. "The industry must adhere to certain consumer protection norms if the Internet is to remain an open platform for innovation."
The FCC action came after VoIP providers Vonage and Nuvio complained to the agency broadband providers are blocking or degrading their Internet telephony services. In public comments, neither Vonage nor Nuvio named the providers blocking their traffic.
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Posted by vonage on Friday, March 04 @ 20:22:53 UTC
(845 reads)
Read More: FCC Slaps Fine On Blocker Of Vonage VoIP
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FCC: Block Vonage And Get Fined $15K |
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FCC Fines N.C. Provider $15K For Blocking Vonage
March 3, 2005
By Paul Kapustka
So who's the guilty party that was blocking Vonage's Voice over IP service? A North Carolina-based service provider, which on Thursday agreed to pay a $15,000 fine for its actions and pledged not to block VoIP traffic in the future.
The Federal Communications Commission announced Thursday that it had reached a $15,000 consent decree with Madison River Communications, a Mebane, North Carolina service provider that calls itself the "17th largest phone company in the US," with "234,204 connections in service."
According to the FCC, Madison River pledged to "refrain from blocking VOIP traffic and ensure that such blocking will not recur." FCC chairman Michael Powell, who has made his vision for "Internet Freedoms" a very public crusade, said the decree supports his views that the Internet should remain open to all types of traffic.
"In my view, the surest way to preserve 'Net Freedom' is to handle these issues in an enforcement context where hypothetical worriers give way to concrete facts and -- as we have shown today -- real solutions," said Powell in a statement released by the FCC. "The industry must adhere to certain consumer protection norms if the Internet is to remain an open platform for innovation," he added.
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Posted by vonage on Friday, March 04 @ 19:18:06 UTC
(773 reads)
Read More: FCC: Block Vonage And Get Fined $15K
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Vonage IPO? Citron, CEO Of The Pioneer VoIP Firm Gives No Hints |
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Vonage Phones In
March 3, 2005
By Staff
Vonage CEO Jeffrey Citron stopped by yesterday. For a mile-a-minute New York talker, he was deafeningly silent on the subject of his company's future financing plans. (We mentioned Vonage as a potential IPO candidate last week.) But he gave us an update on his four-year-old company, which, for those who don't know, is the largest provider of Internet phone service, also known as VOIP (voice over Internet protocol).
By my back-of-the-envelope calculation, if Vonage keeps adding customers at its current pace, it could earn as much as $223 million in revenue this year, which would more than double its revenues last year. That's a lot of dough, and it explains a crazy rumor I heard recently about Vonage's valuation. ($1 billion. Citron wouldn't comment.)
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Posted by vonage on Friday, March 04 @ 00:00:00 UTC
(1024 reads)
Read More: Vonage IPO? Citron, CEO Of The Pioneer VoIP Firm Gives No Hints
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Vonage Sees Future In Wireless VoIP |
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Reuters Summit - Vonage Sees Future In Wireless
March 1, 2005
By Justin Hyde
SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Vonage Holdings Corp., the largest seller of consumer Internet-based telephone service, said on Tuesday it was exploring ways to allow its customers to use the service over cellular phone networks.
Vonage Chairman and Chief Executive Jeffrey Citron said the company had held talks for roaming agreements with all the major cellular companies, but the technological hurdles remained high.
Vonage's customers plug phones into specially designed Internet adapters that convert voice calls into data sent over the Web, a technology that Vonage sees as more efficient than dedicated voice lines that traditional phones use.
Later this year, Vonage will offer a telephone handset with Vonage software that transmits calls over Wi-Fi wireless Internet connections. Citron said that while the handset was not meant to replace a cell phone, Vonage would eventually like to have such handsets be able to use cellular networks.
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Posted by vonage on Wednesday, March 02 @ 00:00:00 UTC
(1178 reads)
Read More: Vonage Sees Future In Wireless VoIP
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Vonage Adds To The Telecommuter Experience |
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Making The Case
February 28, 2005
By Mike Drummond
Telework: 24 million Americans work from home. Will the trend spread?
Supreme Court Chief Justice William Rehnquist became the nation's highest profile telecommuter last week, thrusting the issue of working off-site into the spotlight.
Rehnquist, 80, will read transcripts of oral arguments from home as he battles thyroid cancer.
He joins an estimated 24 million Americans who "telework" full or part time, a figure that's remained flat over the past few years, according to data compiled by the International Telework Association and Council. It remains to be seen if Rehnquist's work-from-home routine will jump-start a practice regarded in many quarters as a cure for car pollution, traffic congestion and work-life balance.
Survey results this month of federal workers showed that some agencies are dragging their heels when it comes to telecommuting, even after Congress established incentives for agencies that promote telework options, according to government-focused IT vendor CDW Government.
Telework proponents note that despite uneven job creation through much of this decade, teleworking has remained relatively stable. Any lull is temporary, they say, arguing that advancing high-speed and wireless Internet connectivity, which sparked a wave of telecommuting in the late 1990s, will keep the movement aloft.
"I think we're at the early stages of a ground shift and you're going to see more people work from where ever they can work," says Brooke Schulz, spokeswoman for Vonage.
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Posted by vonage on Tuesday, March 01 @ 17:12:20 UTC
(947 reads)
Read More: Vonage Adds To The Telecommuter Experience
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