Having used VoIP problem free for a long time I was baffled as to why all of a sudden I had been having lots of issues. Sound quality has massively deteriorated and latency issues have become markedly noticeable. Users on VoIP online forums in the US and other countries, such as Germany and Mexico, having issues since last year. For a while VoIP might seem like a good deal for the average person, more established interests in the telecommunication industry view it differently - and are doing something about it.
Consultation
knowledgeable of what has happened in other countries the United Kingdom telecoms regulator Ofcom took the decisive action in January of announcing that it will look at the growing VoIP industry and report next month on whether new laws are necessary to shield 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 proof this is occurring in the UK; only about 000 customers use it. But the forecast is for that to rise by 4m in the next six months.
And VoIP barring takes place in other countries, often those where there is still only a single incumbent telecoms company. In Saudi Arabia, for example national carrier Saudi Telecom is using software from US supplier Narus to block all VoIP phone calls.
Telecommunication companies in the US as well as other countries are hesitant to have their bandwidth encroached on by traffic from which they earn no revenue and have been challenged over similar alleged incidents of internet telephony blocking. Hindering VoIP traffic is not easy but does not break the law and blocking specific kinds of internet traffic is going up.
The European based VoIP giant Skype who are now owned by the pre-eminent auction site eBay has been particularly controversial. Skype is used by 75m people. But increasingly a lot of people do not want Skype on their network.
Skype is considered by a lot of people to pose a potential security risk because it creates an encrypted tunnel out of the network and forms supernodes that sit on it and set up VoIP calls. There is huge debate about how much bandwidth such supernodes eat up. There have been warnings that in supernode mode, Skype could possibly saturate a 100 Mbps line.
