Are ISPs Blocking VoIP Calls?
By Roy Mark February 23, 2005 Internet telephony companies Vonage and Nuvio have turned to federal authorities with their complaints that some broadband providers are blocking or degrading their Voice over IP services. Last week, the Edison, N.J.-based Vonage confirmed it had met with the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) about the problem, but stressed today it had filed no formal complaint. “There was one malicious, intentional incidence of port blocking,” Brooke Schulz, Vonage’s senior vice president of corporate communications, said Wednesday. “We’ve had initial meetings [with the FCC] to discuss our options.” The Vonage meeting with FCC officials came almost six months after Kansas City-based Nuvio sent a letter to the FCC accusing unnamed broadband providers of engaging in discriminatory practices by blocking Nuvio VoIP calls. “In each case, they [the broadband providers] had their own VoIP service,” said Jason Talley, president and CEO of Nuvio. Talley also stressed that m
