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The Telecom Digest for December 28, 2013
Volume 32 : Issue 255 : "text" Format
====== 32 years of TELECOM Digest -- Founded August 21, 1981 ======
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Telecom and VOIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) Digest for the
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Date: Fri, 27 Dec 2013 09:50:58 -0500
From: Fred Goldstein <invalid@see.sig.telecom-digest.org>
To: telecomdigestmoderator.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org.
Subject: Re: Can the FCC Handle Phone Service over the Internet?
Message-ID: <52BD93D2.8060705@ionary.com>
On 12/26/2013 1:20 PM, HAncock4 wrote:
> On Tuesday, December 24, 2013 10:23:52 AM UTC-5, Fred Goldstein wrote:
>> Mr. Lazarus appears to understand VoIP about as well as a good
>> farrier understands electronic fuel injection. Perhaps he's
>> shilling for the Bells, who want to maintain confusion in order to
>> get out of their regulatory obligations.
>
> What regulatory obligations do the 'baby bells' still have? In our
> area, Verizon announced only residential POTS service was regulated.
> All business services and all premium residential services are not
> regulated.
The key obligations are wholesale, not retail. The whole point of the
PSTN is that it is a catenet, functionally one network under multiple
owners, not an internet, which is voluntary agreements among network
operators. In the PSTN, intercnnection is mandatory: in other words,
"The call must go through", even if one of the carriers doesn't like
the price they're getting to route it.
To prevent abuse, the price for interconnection is regulated. The
originating carrier may charge its own customer whatever retail rate
it wants, but the originating carrier MUST hand it off to the
terminating carrier, who may only charge what the regulators approve.
Note that in the internet model, that is not the case, and if the
parties can't reach agreement, packets may be routed indirectly or not
sent at all (though in practice some connectivity is usually reached;
absent QoS, it is not like the PSTN where quality matters).
What the Bells want is for interconnection to be treated like the
Internet. Then they could refuse to pay competitors to deliver their
calls, and demand higher rates from competitors who send them calls,
or refuse them entirely. Size gives an advantage in that situation.
--
Fred R. Goldstein k1io fred "at" interisle.net
Interisle Consulting Group
+1 617 795 2701
Date: Fri, 27 Dec 2013 11:34:42 -0800 (PST)
From: Neal McLain <nmclain.remove-this@and-this-too.annsgarden.com>
To: telecomdigestmoderator.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org.
Subject: D.C. Circuit Rejects Challenge to Sunsetting of Viewability Rule
Message-ID: <82d5c689-1f10-4606-b4f4-85f171854014@googlegroups.com>
By Harry Cole, CoomLawBlog,. December 27, 2013
| The D.C. Circuit has given the FCC and the cable industry a
| belated Christmas present. It has rejected a challenge mounted
| by a number of broadcasters (including the NAB) to the FCC's
| 2012 revision of its "viewability" rule. And one member of
| the three-judge panel went considerably further, suggesting
| that the entire cable must-carry regime is on extremely shaky
| constitutional footing.
|
| The viewability rule, adopted in 2007, applied to "hybrid"
| cable companies. ("Hybrid" cable operators are those that
| opted, after the 2009 DTV transition, to provide an analog
| tier of programming consisting of local TV signals and, in
| some cases some cable channels so that subscribers with
| analog receivers would not require additional equipment.) The
| rule provided that such operators could either (1) provide the
| digital signal of all must-carry stations in analog format (in
| addition to any digital version carried) to all analog cable
| subscribers, or (2) transition to an all-digital system and
| carry the signal in digital format only, provided that all
| subscribers have the necessary equipment to view the broadcast
| content.
Continued:
http://tinyurl.com/plc2d83
" ...suggesting that the entire cable must-carry regime is on
extremely shaky constitutional footing." I wonder if "must-carry
regime" also includes retrans consent. That would be a real Christmas
gift to the cable TV industry!
This decision isn't final of course. Broadcasters will surely appeal
the District Court's decision and the case may end up at the Supreme
Court.
Neal McLain
Date: Fri, 27 Dec 2013 23:01:42 +0000 (UTC)
From: wollman@bimajority.org (Garrett Wollman)
To: telecomdigestmoderator.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org.
Subject: Re: D.C. Circuit Rejects Challenge to Sunsetting of Viewability Rule
Message-ID: <l9l0sm$1pta$1@grapevine.csail.mit.edu>
In article <82d5c689-1f10-4606-b4f4-85f171854014@googlegroups.com>,
Neal McLain <nmclain.remove-this@and-this-too.annsgarden.com> wrote:
>Continued:
>http://tinyurl.com/plc2d83
>
>
>" ...suggesting that the entire cable must-carry regime is on
>extremely shaky constitutional footing." I wonder if "must-carry
>regime" also includes retrans consent. That would be a real Christmas
>gift to the cable TV industry!
I doubt it. Retrans consent has a very different legal footing. If
the current must-carry regime were nullified (by either Congress or
the Courts), then retrans consent would continue unimpeded, unless
Congress chose to eliminate it (thereby creating a new carve-out from
copyright law, whereas the copyright industry has been very
successful in pushing Congress in the opposite direction, making
copyright law more and more draconian at every turn).
>This decision isn't final of course. Broadcasters will surely appeal
>the District Court's decision and the case may end up at the Supreme
>Court.
It was not a district court decision; the decision came from the
United States Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit. The losers can
petition for an "en banc" rehearing (by the entire D.C. Circuit), or
they can petition the Supreme Court to hear their appeal. If they get
an "en banc", the losing party at that stage can then petition SCOTUS.
-GAWollman
--
Garrett A. Wollman | What intellectual phenomenon can be older, or more oft
wollman@bimajority.org| repeated, than the story of a large research program
Opinions not shared by| that impaled itself upon a false central assumption
my employers. | accepted by all practitioners? - S.J. Gould, 1993
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