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VoIP customers around the world are discovering that their calls cannot be connected because telecom companies are blocking the movement of such traffic across the net
Mindful of what has happened in other countries, the UK telecoms regulator Ofcom took the unusual step in February of announcing that it will look at the growing VoIP market, and report next month on whether new laws are needed to protect it. The consultation document says: "VoIP service providers have expressed concern that their ability to provide a reliable service may be impacted by internet access providers (ISPs) selectively degrading or blocking their VoIP traffic."
Ofcom says it has no evidence this is happening in the UK; only about 500,000 customers use it. But the forecast is for that to rise by 3m in the next six months.
And VoIP blocking happens in other countries, often those where there is still only a single telecoms company. In Saudi Arabia, for instance, national carrier Saudi Telecom is using software from US supplier Narus to block all VoIP calls.
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In its recent ruling against a small Internet service provider called Brand X Internet, the U.S. Supreme Court said that cable operators don't need to share their broadband access lines with other businesses. That's good news for big cable companies but could be trouble for voice-over-Internet Protocol providers like Vonage, which sell digital phone service.
Needless to say, the cable and phone companies aren't happy about this, and some of them have already taken action to stop it. In March, Vonage complained that North Carolina-based phone company Madison River Communications and other, smaller providers were blocking Vonage traffic across their networks. And Kansas City, Mo.-based VoIP provider Nuvio said last year that its customers' calls have been blocked by at least one cable operator.
