TELECOM Digest OnLine - Sorted: Vonage's Citron Says VoIP Blocking Is 'Censorship'


Vonage's Citron Says VoIP Blocking Is 'Censorship'


Jack Decker (jack-yahoogroups@withheld)
Wed, 02 Mar 2005 22:30:25 -0500

http://www.internetweek.com/allStories/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=60404872

By Paul Kapustka
Courtesy of Advanced IP Pipeline

SAN FRANCISCO -- According to Vonage Holdings Corp. CEO Jeffrey
Citron, intentional blocking of Voice over IP traffic is more than
just a competitive dirty trick -- it's an act of censorship against
free speech.

In an exclusive interview here Tuesday [March 1], Vonage's chief
executive said the issue of the company's recent incident of having
some VoIP traffic blocked reaches beyond the market for IP-based voice
communications and into the realm of free speech -- and as such,
should be protected by the courts, the FCC, or by new telecom
regulation that ensures free and open access over the Internet.

"What is this [port blocking] really all about?" said Citron, who was
in San Francisco Tuesday for the Reuters Technology Summit. "It's
really censorship in a way."

Though Citron would not identify the ISP that Vonage is claiming to
have blocked its VoIP service, he did provide some additional details
about the incident, as well as some opinions on where the online world
might be headed if technologic tactics like port blocking or traffic
manipulation are not actively discouraged or made illegal.

[.....]

Citron also said that some of Vonage's customers involved in the
incident called their ISP, which admitted it was blocking Vonage.

"They [the ISP] came out and said [to the customers] 'yes, we are
doing this.' So there is no dispute," Citron said. "We were
intentionally, willfully, blocked."

Full story at:
http://www.internetweek.com/allStories/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=60404872

How to Distribute VoIP Throughout a Home:
http://michigantelephone.mi.org/distribute.html

If you live in Michigan, subscribe to the MI-Telecom group:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/MI-Telecom/

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