Telmex Will Not Empower Users -- The QOS Tax
A fascinating comment received today from Telmex in response to our post asking if Telmex is "blocking" Skype and Vonage users. The comment which appears genunine provides both an insight into the challenges growth is putting on infrastructure "we cannot guarantee continuous functioning" and plans for future strategy "we will offer Internet services with a different commitment "QOS" (quality of service), with a SLA mechanism (service level agreements)." The response adds:
In order to support services with "Real time" quality, we need to modify the infrastructure to follow up with these Internet characteristics from beginning to end.
We will acquire the capacity to control the distribution of Internet bandwidth for each user with different types of traffic. Therefore, we need to divide total traffic in different categories and assign a minimum percentage of total bandwidth to each one, under high usage and congestion conditions.
These different kinds of traffic can represent different kinds of users and protocols.
In a Net with these characteristics, the cost for the use of this particular service will be higher than the traditional best-effort transfer. Comment by Concepsion Rivera
The comment lays the blame with consumers using P2P systems, and as I read it suggests that consumers shouldn't want an always on connected world. My reading of this response suggests that Telmex has adopted a "frustrate and fight" strategy. What's outlined is not a win-win strategy for consumers or Telmex. I'd advocate that if the F&F strategy aims to stop the likes of Vonage or Skype, the results will be far worse. From my perspective this comment confirms that Telmex doesn't have a Skype strategy. So it will be real interesting if Vonage and Skype call quality complaints continue or get worse. It will be even more telling when in the board meeting they have to share their results. I hope shareholders ask " What are you doing to provide users with an always on connected world?".
All equipment connected to these applications establish constant communication and are victims of the process of other equipments searching also for files and because of this, the equipment is permanently emitting information.
Wow you mean I should turn off my computer? Dear user please turn your computer off. Don't use it to share presence. Every transaction you make should be chargeable. In my simple consumer view this comment is completely backwards. The Telmex response says introduce "CONTROL MECHANISMS", --- eventually get control. Rachet down the future. This is far away from what we - users should want. I read excuses, fear, and continued greed between the lines. If this is really Telemex's position? Is your telecom provider the same? What are your regulators and governments going to do about it? Whether this is
So please tell me... Should I read this as Telmex will fight Skype and other VoIP providers by letting the "general service" deteriorate, and then offering services at higher rates that work? Will they frustrate VoIP interconnects? Is / Are Telecoms about to make it an even more dirty game?
Links:
ZDNet on VoIP finds foreign friends and adversaries
Vonage Forum
The Herald: Users decry deline in service
Comments
TELMEX is making this to Skype users because they don´t want us to stop paying long distance calls. Right now, my internet connection is 2 MB and even that, i´m having a bad quality voice in skype.
Posted by: Diego | May 18, 2005 07:44 AM
I can tell you without a doubt that this is exactly what telmex is doing at this time. We went through a long 4 month battle with them, to try and get some kind of resolution. They even got to the point where they shut down xbox live, because it uses ports close to voip. We finally caved in to their demands, and purchased an upgraded plan.
The plan we had was a 1mb down dsl line for 100 dollars a month. Now we are on a 1mb down dsl line, with static ip, for 200 dollars a month, and the voip works perfect. Therefore, as stated in your report, they are simply making us pay more money, to have the ability to use different features on the internet.
Posted by: Mark Thiessen | May 20, 2005 08:04 AM
I know from a VERY reliable (internal) source that TelMex's Prodigy Infinitum uses CISCO in their infraestructure and that the engineers were instructed to block random UDP packets ever since VoIP became widely available. That's why the QoS is so variable for Skype and results in unreliable behaviour
Posted by: CragBoar | August 16, 2006 07:13 PM
telmex is a powerfull company owned by man eaters in mexico.. these creatures appeared almost a decade ago when their lider salinas de gortari got the presidency, he sold the state companies to his flock of demons, and now, these creatures are just bleeding poor people in mexico, bleeding them to death.Because of this people flee away for their lives, leaving everything behind. when these creatures attack, they destroy smash and devour everything on their path, this is the main cause why people migrate... i mean scape to other countries; some, like me, get lucky and find a good place to live, although not as a citizen yes as a human being. we people need to get together, and smash the heads of these beasts, 'till then, we'll have peace and see mexico flourish, one more time.
Posted by: Gio | October 8, 2006 02:20 PM