This is from Andy Abramson's blog, at:
http://andyabramson.blogs.com/voipwatch/2004/11/sbc_seems_to_be.html
In what is clearly meant to be both a hedge against losing money to
VoIP competitors by slowing them down by charging them more, SBC has
also at the same time made a move that could potentially make their
VoIP service less costly.
In a tariff filing today, SBC wants to charge ISP's more if they
terminate calls on their network according to a report from The Wall
Street Journal.
http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB110065122384576170-search,00.html?collection=wsjie%2F30day&vql_string=sbc%3Cin%3E%28article%2Dbody%29
(Subscription Required)
Sadly, this is so typical from a company that seeks total control and
ownership of the pipe and the customer and which sees their
competition not being the other telcos and next generation VoIP
providers, but also the cable MSOs.
Yesterday I called all this an arms race. Now it's turning into
economic warfare as well. Smartly, FCC Chairman Michael Powell has
already announced he's looking into this. Don't also be surprised if
this is also bargaining chip by SBC to establish some preferred
provider relationships with ISP's and MSO's to get more of the data
traffic as well as voice calls moving over their networks. While Level
3, MCI, Qwest, Broadwing and AT&T have significant if not the most
traffic, SBC has also built out their own IP network, and that's a
network that needs filling up. It would not be out of the realm of
possbility that companies working with SBC get some sort of incentives
and all this is a rouse to get them there ...
In the meantime it's important that all of the VOIP companies and the
ISP's band together to work to stop what is meant to be clearly
another square on SBC's Monopoly Board game.
Lisa Minter (lisa_minter2001@yahoo.com)