The Jeff Pulver Blog: After a Productive Week, I’m in a “Net Freedom” State of Mind

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March 26, 2005

After a Productive Week, I’m in a “Net Freedom” State of Mind

This week I met with the Israel Economic Mission in New York in regard to my upcoming VoIP Mission to Israel June 14-15, Level 3 withdrew their petition; I had an engaging meeting with members of the executive team of a major service provider; saw that Vonage was sued in Texas over 911 issues; I watched my kids on their birthday from the “Green Room” while they were on “U-Pick Live” on Nick TV, and I ended the week catching up with some of the better known “money people” in Boston after learning about another alleged VoIP port blocking incident.

This morning I woke up thinking back on the week that was and the one thing which stands out in my mind is what happens to Net Freedoms in the event the underlying service provider is not a “Title 2” service provider. What concerns me is that I remember a conversation I had with a Broadband Power Line (BPL) company last year and they made mention of the fact that allowing their customers to have access to Free World Dialup or any VoIP service which wasn’t associated with their own service wasn’t in their own best interests. They took issue with what they called the “free riders.” Reference to “free riders” also came up during my conversation with the service provider I saw this week. Blocking the services associated with “free riders” was the thought that came to mind when I first read Paul’s story on the alleged port blocking incident.

I don’t know what the solution is going to be but for the sake of our kids, if the Internet is going to still be as free as it is today, say ten years from now, public policy may need to need to be reformed to ensure that any consumer can just assume that they can run any lawful application of their choosing if they are a customer of any service provider who amongst their other services also provides direct access to the Internet.

If we don’t protect our net freedoms today, there may not be any to protect in the future.

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