Alec Saunders SquawkBox

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It’s Regulatory Thursday, and Carl Ford leads a discussion of the the end of the enhanced service exemption.  The FCC wants to revoke the ESP exemption for Interconnected VoIP traffic. Such a decision would not only have a financial impact on Interconnected VoIP provider. The FCC’s counsel has already told the court that this exclusive jurisdiction means that states can still apply things like state USF contributions and other things (regardless of whether it is an information service and regardless of whether there is federal jurisdiction). Revoking the ESP exemption is a huge problem.

For more details on this issue, visit the Freedom2Speak website.

On the Calliflower Conference Call today: Carl Ford, Sergio Meinardi, Alec Saunders, Jim Kohlenberger, Claude Hayn, Dwight Irving, Dawn Mular, Karel Lukas, James Markus, Dan York, Mark Hewitt, James Body, Jonathan Taylor, Geoff Love, Ed Pimental, Anatoli Levine, Jeb Brilliant, Jeanette Fisher, Bill Volk, and Mohamed El-Mohri

 

 Squawk Box October 23 [44:30m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

InterCarrier compensation battles continue at the FCC.  Most recently, Verizon has sent their view.

Guest host Carl Ford takes a look at the last six months of petitions and discussions and ask the question “What is the impact of the election on the commissions decision?”.

On the Calliflower Conference Call this morning: Carl Ford, Jim Kohlenberger, Brita Strandberg, Dan York, Mark Hewitt, James Body, Sergio Meinardi, and Tom Orr.

 

 Squawk Box October 9 [67:01m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

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First we dove into the Net Neutrality debate. It looks as if three of five FCC  commissioners will vote to sanction Comcast this Friday for throttling bit-torrent  traffic. Dissenter Bob McDowell wrote an op-ed for yesterday’s Washington Post arguing that engineers should figure a way out of this mess, not politicians.

I don’t think there’s any doubt that Comcast was throttling traffic. We talked about McDowell’s argument for a hands-off approach by the FCC, the issues around bandwidth shortages, and what’s happening outside North America.

We also talked about Vonage.  It’s been a while since they’ve really  been in the news, but they’ve been quietly cranking out announcements. They’ve announced a partial refinancing of their debt.  Up to  $215 million of their $253 million can be refinanced under an agreement they’ve  just struck, and $125 million has been committed. They have to do this because the  existing convertible notes expire Dec 12.

They’ve also announced their first patent — on virtual phone numbers.

Revenues are growing.  Losses are narrowing — last quarter they lost just $8  million.

And, they’re set to announce a new CEO.

We talked about what it would take to make Vonage a success and whether or not they might really make it.

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 Squawk Box July 29 [39:33m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

My original description read like this: After centuries of taxes and service fees based on the use of local switching by a phone company, the application of those rules to services on the Internet is burdensome. Can Intercarrier Compensation be placed into a model that is logical for all participants? While fighting for this vision on an international and national level, some municipalities are pushing us into even more complexity.

But as look would have it we got more than original bargain.

Alistair Campbell, CTO of Truphone, joined us to talk about there experience as part of the crowd joining the iPhone application store.  And we discussed the money issues in what is being done with Apple and what the issues are with them terminating calls to the PSTN.

Which was a great segway to the conversation with Hank Hultquist of ATT and his discussion  of the need for restructuring of Inter-Carrier compensation.  The result was something extraordinary imho because the Internet and Voice views were all being discussed in one session.

Come listen and tell us what you think.

 

 Alistair Campbell and Hank Hultquist: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

The bright sparks at the MPAA have asked the FCC to permit them to use technology to block the home-based recording of recently released movies on DVRs. They say that they want to allow recent releases to go to television faster, but to protect against the possibility of illegal distribution of DVDs created from those releases. ARS Technica has full details of the proposal.

While I’d love to be able to watch the latest theatrical releases from the comfort of my home, I want to do it on my terms. That includes pausing the film so that I can get a snack or have a leak, and making a recording so that I can watch it whenever I please. I haven’t watched television “live” since the Ottawa Senators were eliminated from the play-off, and I really can’t recall the last time I watched a movie live.

One really has to wonder about the MPAA’s motivations on this one. Are they (a) out of touch with how the market consumes their content today (b) pushing for this exemption in order to test the waters for other exemptions or (c) secret investors in BitTorrent?