Timed to arrive just before this week’s Freedom to Connect conference and next months Pulver-sponsered policy summit, there has been a recent stir in the net community caused by the Clearwire decision to port block their customers from using Vonage and other VoIP services.
Jeff Pulver writes this impassioned plea to act, in which he says …
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The time is NOW for a Call to Arms to fight more vigorously for consumer empowerment and net freedom both in the US and all parts of the Broadband empowered world.
…
I heard a Bell rep use the “F” word (”Freerider”) to describe what VoIP ASPs do. Several months ago, SBC’s Ed Whitacre used the word in the Wall Street Journal to describe Vonage and Skype.
…
I fear that we are seeing rumblings of likely anti-competitive practices from the larger players and we should be immediately and eternally vigilant to ensure that we do not wake up some day next year to find that we have no viable means to stop port blocking and other activity designed to preclude IP-based ASPs from reaching consumers.
… and poetically …
Now is time for us to shine a spotlight on these issues before it is too late - before there is no longer a place for unaffiliated IP-based ASPs. First they came for the CLECs, but I wasn’t a CLEC so I didn’t care; then they came for the ISPs, but I wasn’t an ISP, so I didn’t care; then they came for the unaffiliated IP-based ASPs, and there was no one left to care.I hope there are members of the Blogsphere who we can count on in joining the fight and protect Net Freedom and Consumer Empowerment before it is too late
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I hope to attend both of these events, and am working to get one of the organizations I am affilliated with to join the Global IP Alliance (this is, after all, a global issue, the net knows no borders).
What can you do? I’ll try hard to get some concise takeaways at these meetings and post them for you.
Happy networking … for now ….