Over Reach and Just Right

It has been a few days since the Federal court ruled against the FCC in the matter of Comcast Cable. It is important to note that few players in the carrier world wanted to see Comcast lose. However, there are those of us that want to see a different result than a complete victory for Comcast. For example, If Broadvox or another ITSP sells a VoIP service to a Comcast customer; both the customer and we rely upon Comcast to deliver those voice packets in a timely and proper fashion. If Comcast can decide that those packets interfere with their other business, then we will be unable to provide VoIP or SIP Trunking to that customer. Additionally, Comcast could deliberately decide that since it offers a VoIP service, the customer should expand its Comcast services rather than select a competitor. Certainly, the customer has the option of terminating its relationship with Comcast and choosing another cable company. However, that is not always easy to do and, of course, can result in early termination fees.

Therefore, some of us desired a third choice. Now speaking just for me, not Broadvox, I wanted the FCC to lose the case. Having the government telling carriers how to manage their networks would be a bad thing. It would affect investment, labor cost, network performance and the definition of private property. My solution is a little more difficult to define and manage but it attempts to address the reduction in the quality of service to force a customer to choose a Comcast product. The consumer should be able to purchase cable as a broadband service and then decide which companies would provide the various applications riding upon the broadband. I view this as a matter for those interested in consumer protection versus network management or grooming concerns. If the FCC approaches net neutrality with that as the basis, then it's possible that the concerns of Comcast and the consumer can be properly addressed.

Finally, if the FCC moves to request legislation by congress to give it the power to define how Comcast will manage its network, we are back in the realm of over reach.

Just Right

Last week Broadvox held an invitation only event for its top performing channel partners. By all accounts, it was a successful event. In additional to announcing two new products GO!Hosted, a virtual PBX offering, and GO!Services, a website development and hosting offering, we treated our guests to a tour of the $1.4 billion Cowboys Stadium,  a really cool networking event. Please visit the post event website to learn more about the Partner Summit and see the fun had touring Cowboys Stadium.

See you on Friday.