Showing posts with label voice. Show all posts
Showing posts with label voice. Show all posts

Thursday, January 15, 2015

USTelecom makes case for Title II common carrier regulation of Internet

Consumers Continue Shift Away From Landline – Regulations Are Behind | USTelecom

This telecom industry article helps make the case for regulating consumer Internet services as common carrier telecommunications services under Title II of the Communications Act. As the article notes, the existing common carrier regulations are designed for a bygone era of analog voice telephone service delivered over copper that is becoming increasingly outdated as landline technology shifts to fiber optic that can deliver voice and other services using Internet transmission protocols.

Monday, August 26, 2013

Pew Internet survey flawed by badly outdated, retro perspective

With the relentless pace of Internet bandwidth demand growth to support multiple services including video, voice and Web-based services as well as a portable devices used in the home, there is near consensus that only fiber to the premises infrastructure will be able to accommodate the demand going forward.

That’s why I’m taken aback to continue to see surveys such as this one issued today by the Pew Research Center’s Internet & American Life Project that take a decidedly retrospective view of telecommunications services with their late 1990s distinction between narrowband (dialup) Internet connectivity and “high speed” broadband connections. 

Dialup service is obsolete and can no longer be considered a useful form of premises Internet connectivity. Had this survey been done in 2000 when the distinction between narrowband and broadband was still relevant, the distinction might have meant something. In 2013, it is a distinction without a difference. 

The other major contextual problem with a survey like this is it concentrates only on computer-based services such as Web browsing and email. That’s also a major flaw in the survey. The Internet now delivers video and voice services including applications such as online learning, videoconferencing and telemedicine – none of which are truly usable via a dialup service.