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North American Network Operators Group Date Prev | Date Next | Date Index | Thread Index | Author Index | Historical RE: More on Vonage service disruptions...
Those are good points. Someone last week mentioned what I thought was a great list of priorities for an ISP: 1. Keep the network running 2. Remove those violating policies 3. Route packets (or something along those lines) A 30/50/90 kbps unicast stream isn't going to affect #1. I don't think any policies involved in #2 would cover a VoIP service either. That should leave #3 as the default for this traffic. I can picture a DDOS where infected Windows machines could send bogus SIP traffic to Vonage servers; in this case temporary blocking might be needed/justified. But until that happens, blocking SIP is just wrong. Another thing for an ISP considering blocking VoIP is the fact that you're cutting off people's access to 911. That alone has got to have some tough legal ramifications. I can tell you that if my ISP started blocking my Vonage, my next cell phone call would be my attorney... Chuck Church Lead Design Engineer CCIE #8776, MCNE, MCSE Netco Government Services - Design & Implementation Team 1210 N. Parker Rd. Greenville, SC 29609 Home office: 864-335-9473 Cell: 703-819-3495 [email protected] PGP key: http://pgp.mit.edu:11371/pks/lookup?op=get&search=0x4371A48D -----Original Message----- From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Fergie (Paul Ferguson) Sent: Wednesday, March 02, 2005 9:46 AM To: [email protected] Subject: More on Vonage service disruptions... advancedIPpipeline is running another article this morning in their series of articles covering the Vonage service disruptions that [allegedly] invlove an ISP "port blocking" SIP connectitity between Vonage's client equipment and Vonage's servers. While there is a bit more decriptive detail in this article involving the nature of the service interruptions, Vonage's CEO, Jeffrey Citron, is trying to make a [in my opinion] weak argument that this type of traffic blocking is akin to censorship. http://www.advancedippipeline.com/news/60404589 The silliness of the "censorship" argument aside, an interesting snippet within this article started me thinking abut the "slippery slope" which might ensue if any type of legislation is enacted which would attempt to prohibit an ISP from blocking traffic in an effort to keep it [unwanted traffic] from traversing their network: "'It'd be unfortunate to have to pass a law [against port blocking and other types of interference], but we may have to,' Citron said. Though he said he has previously testified against the need for port-blocking regulation, Citron may now change that tune, especially if more network operators start using port-blocking or other techniques to selectively control Internet traffic." It looks to me like this is going to open up a huge can of worms. On one hand, you have ISP's who own their own infrastructure and have every right to prohibit traffic from traversing their network which does not conform to their AUP, business practices, technical standards, etc., or provide revenue. By the same token, and specifically when it comes to things like VoIP, we have these issues involving PUC's, FCC regulations, "equal access" rights, etc. IANAL (or a policy wonk), and I hope I'm wrong, but it certainly looks like things could get pretty ugly. - ferg -- "Fergie", a.k.a. Paul Ferguson Engineering Architecture for the Internet [email protected] or [email protected]
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