Rural Telcos Blocking Vonage?
from the bad-news... dept
For years, smaller startups, especially in the VoIP space have been saying that the FCC needs to mandate network neutrality, saying that no internet service provider can specifically block or favor traffic from a specific provider. The fear was that a telco would block all VoIP traffic, forcing users to stay with their existing telco. For the most part, the FCC has stayed out of it, noting that it didn’t make sense to put forth a ruling when there was no evidence that there was a real problem. Also, they hoped that the market would sort it out. The theory was: who’s going to sign up for a broadband provider that blocks you from using VoIP? While there have been accusations of VoIP blocking outside the US, apparently Vonage is now accusing a number of local rural telcos of blocking their service. The FCC says they’re looking into the matter.
