Contradictory reports on VoIP quality

We’ll look at VoIP issues for the next few days, since the CRTC’s reconsideration of the VoIP regulatory regime should be released later today or tomorrow.

About a month ago, I mentioned a recent Brix Networks study on VoIP quality metrics. Brix reported that there are service quality problems with 20% of VoIP calls.

Earlier this week, Montreal-based Minacom released its own study that shows:

Only 1 out of 50 calls found to be unacceptable, 85% of VoIP calls exceed PSTN quality according to Minacom’s standards-based, North American & Global VoIP Testing Study.

This is seemingly in direct conflict with the Brix study, but there is a key difference in the definition of what kinds of VoIP calls are being studied.

Brix focused on PC-PC types of calls. Similarly, a study I reported on by Telephia excluded cable company digital voice “since they are not promoted as VoIP.”

The Minacom study includes telco and cable VoIP offerings and is therefore more representative of what consumers and businesses are buying.

OK. So VoIP can be as good, and even better, than POTS. As I wrote earlier in the week, show us the features and fun capabilities. Give customers a real reason to switch!

Telesat IPO

TelesatThe Globe and Mail carried a report today that BCE is putting together a $1B IPO for Telesat as a consequence of a sale falling through. BCE has been quick to say that its intention was always to take a portion of the company public.

Accounts from the original February announcement seem to confirm BCE’s statements. An outright sale would have been a change in course and would have been complicated.

Any sale of a majority of Telesat would require creative ownership structures, due to Canada’s foreign ownership restrictions on such facilities. Many veterans in the Canadian telecom sector are familiar with such arrangements – let us know if you need help putting together your bid.

In any case, BCE selling just 20% of the company by way of an IPO avoids the possibility of running off-side. As the Globe account notes, this is an asset that will benefit from a relaxation of the foreign investment constraints.

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Focus on illegal content

Let’s keep a focus on the subject of illegal internet content.

In Canada, we can view the issue from the perspectives of kids’ internet safety (see KINSA) and hate. We brought the subject of Illegal Content to the floor of The 2006 Canadian Telecom Summit with a session featuring compelling presentations by Paul Gillespie of the Toronto Police Child Exploitation Unit and Bernie Farber of Canadian Jewish Congress.

We applied some of these learnings in last week’s application to the CRTC and that action has moved the discussion to radio talk shows and news headlines from coast-to-coast.

Michael Geist writes:

If there is an effort to develop an appropriate policy framework, it will need to include complaints mechanisms, a presumption that the content is lawful and must be disproved by a high standard of evidence, an opportunity to challenge blocking requests, appropriate judicial oversight, and full transparency about blocking activities.

We agree.

We would also want to explore the possibility that blocking not be mandated, but perhaps hold out an incentive for carriers and ISPs to subscribe to the scheme. ISPs that participate could be absolved of any liability – both for carrying illegal content that was not correctly flagged and for blocking content that should not have been blocked – as long as the service providers implement the prescribed blocking solution. It gives ISPs the ability to point to others to apply blame in either direction.

We also believe that research into technology solutions should accompany the policy framework development. BT has had its Cleanfeed project operating for two years now and it has since been adopted by 3 Scandinavian countries. These are solutions in operation in familiar democratic regimes.

This is not a case of Canada adopting Chinese-styled limits on civil freedoms; it is moving Canada back into a leadership position in exploring ways to exert its sovereignty in cyberspace.

When Canadians are threatened, shouldn’t they be able to rely on their own instruments of justice?

The Toronto Star carried my letter to the editor this morning, in response to Michael Geist‘s article in Monday’s paper.

Statement of consumer rights

The CRTC has issued Telecom Decision CRTC 2006-52, a “Statement of consumer rights” in respect of ILEC local home telephone service. The Commission limited its Statement to those rights and services under the Telecom Act, and did not extend these rights to include a Net User Bill of Rights (that we discussed in June) that has been raised in the US Senate.

As stated in the CRTC’s press release,

This statement clarifies consumers’ key rights which include: the right to a local telephone service, the right to choose a phone company, the right to confidentiality, and the right to register a dispute or complaint.

In the near future, some local markets will be forborne from regulation. Today’s Decision recognizes that there could be a significant difference between consumer rights mandated for regulated markets and those that may be applicable in forborne markets. CRTC Chair Charles Dalfen said:

Ensuring that consumers understand their rights is important. In the future, when some local markets are not regulated, it will be important that consumers continue to understand their rights and we are hopeful the entire industry will work together to ensure those rights are understood and respected.

We agree. However, the Decision calls for

ILECs to consult with the CLECs and consumer groups, in the context of industry self-regulation, on the issue of establishing and communicating consumer rights in forborne local services markets.

I’m not crazy about encouraging this kind of cooperation in setting standards for service delivery. Would we want Ford, GM and Toyota to get together to agree on what kind of rights automotive consumers have in a fully competitive market? I think I would prefer to see competitors compete, rather than collude on service delivery and consumer rights.

Set the minimum standards – after that, let the marketplace decide.

Rebtel

VoIP has to deliver more to avoid being PoIP – POTS over IP. VoIP providers can’t compete if their only advantage is deep discount pricing – ‘In a starvation contest, the fat guy always wins.

So, the incumbent players will win a price war. What are some of the more innovative applications for consumers and businesses?

Jon Arnold and Jeff Pulver have recently written about Rebtel, a company that is productizing an application that I have been doing on my own with VoIP lines set up for call forwarding.

Here is part of the idea:

  • In the US, consumers are now buying ‘big buckets’ of nation-wide calling minutes. I have a New York phone number that is set up to forward to my home line, which enables our US friends and family to call us (in Canada) using their virtually unlimited bucket of minutes.
  • I have set up a Toronto line to forward to each of my kids phones at school and set up a line in their university town to forward back to us in the Toronto area.

With Rebtel, you can take this concept to a global level. There were other companies playing with similar ideas, so watch your investments!

Will such arbitrage be effective enough to get cellular companies to be more realistic with their outrageous long distance rates?

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