I came across a very interesting entry on Susan Crawford’s blog about recommendations for ISP accountability. One of the topics raised was similar to my own suggestion that equal treatment for VoIP traffic would be an element of that accountability. Susan speculates, with good reason, that content and copyright holders could transform the notion of ISP accountability into something altogether less appealing for those of us who use the Internet and enjoy content (i.e. everybody).
On a somewhat related note with respect to treatment of VoIP traffic, Robert Cringely’s column on the subject has gotten a great deal of attention in the blogosphere. Mr. Cringely’s basic assessment is that broadband ISPs will apply Class of Service to their own VoIP services, effectively downgrading the performance of other VoIP services moving across their network to best-effort level traffic. I agree with Cringely that this is a possible work-around for ISPs that don’t want to be caught blocking competing VoIP services. Where I think Cringely’s argument has problems, at least in the near term, is that implementing CoS mechanisms across multiple IP networks is somewhat difficult technically. The various tags and classes which can be applied to IP packets must be standardized across each network the packets will traverse. Most service providers offering classes of service to business customers have been taking an our-approach-is-best stance with respect to their class structure, so there isnt a tremendous push to compromise or standardize on something that wasnt invented within their own engineering groups. I just don’t see the major ISPs coming together anytime soon to come to any sort of agreement on this. Antitrust issues aside, VoIP is one of the key means by which the regional bell companies and cable companies will be able to compete in one another’s markets.
