22 Jan 09 Crafty Comcast?
What are they up to now?
Back in August, Comcast got their knuckles rapped by the FCC for throttling specific P2P programs.
Now the FCC is asking Comcast in a letter filed on January 18, to give “detailed justification” as to why the new network management system they put in place since last August appears to affect the quality of third party VOIP services such as, for example, Vonage; yet doesn’t seem to have any effect on Comcast’s own Digital Voice Service.
I used to have Vonage here myself, but switched away from it last year to considerably reduce costs, and switched to a combination of Skype and MyFax, and this saves over $500 a year.
I’ve not had any noticeable degradation of service myself, and the fax service is noticeably better. (There is a class action suit happening right now regarding Vonage’s Fax service, but that is for another article).
The bottom line regarding Comcast though is this:
If they’re using different technology to provide their Digital Voice Service, then it could become a telephony service and not simply VOIP, and could be taxed as such; if they’re not doing that; then they need to explain why their service is getting priority over other IP based services on their network, contrary to what they’ve told the FCC after last August.
FCC logoIn a letter filed January 18, the US agency asks Comcast to provide “detailed justification” on why its new network management practices affect the quality of competing VoIP services, but apparently doesn’t degrade Comcast’s own Digital Voice Service.
The ISP recently switched its traffic management plan in response to an August order from the Federal Communications Commission demanding Comcast stop throttling specific P2P programs like BitTorrent, eDonkey, and Gnuetella.
Tags: bottom line, class action suit, comcast, digital voice, edonkey, fax service, fcc, federal communications commission, gnuetella, justification, knuckles, management practices, myfax, network management system, p2p programs, skype, telephony service, traffic management plan, voice service, vonage
20 Nov 08 Do You Use This Free Phone Service?
Do you use the AIM Free phone line service? I tried it out for a while some time back, and it worked quite well if you didn’t mind running AIM on your desktop all the time.
AIM Free Phoneline is
I haven’t used it since I moved my business lines to Skype, which gives me much more portability, and the ability to use my cellphone as well via their service. AIM free phone line tied you to your desk. Still it was, well, free, and it was useful before I had GrandCentral to separate my personal and business calls for me.
Anyway, it’s another service that AOL are closing down. From January 13, 2009, it will be no more. They seem to be taking stuff down bit by bit. The AOL journals went recently too.
I don’t use AOL myself these days, and I only dabbled with it out of curiosity in the past, but they seem to be slowing fading away. They’ve attempted to become more and more part of the ‘mainstream’ internet in recent times, but I wonder if they’ve left it too late. Perhaps they could have been one of the leaders of Social Media Networking if they’d followed a different strategy. After all like ‘em or loathe ‘em they were one of the leaders at one time in online connectivity, with millions of customers. It was where the majority of the newbies went, and it was part of the crapware installed on many many store-bought home PCs.
Come to think of it, I can’t remember the last time I had one of those AOL CDs appear in my mailbox…
Tags: aim, aol cds, bit by bit, business calls, business lines, cellphone, connectivity, crapware, curiousity, desk, free phone line, home pcs, journals, last time, mainstream internet, newbies, skype
06 May 08 Strange Firefox Error
Recently Firefox started acting up when attempting to display some images.
It would work fine with thumbnails for example but clicking on them to get the full picture gave me a message saying that the image couldn’t be displayed as it contain errors. After checking numerous sites and getting the same image, I tried a windows machine with IE, and they appeared fine.
First thing to do is run Firefox in safe mode. If you’re using a windows machine, simply pull up a command line box (Start, Run), and type firefox -safe-mode in it.
That will run Firefox with everything disabled. I did that, and images worked fine. Next step is to go back to regular firefox, and disable all your add-ons. Then re-activate them, one by one, until you recreate the error.
In my case, it was my Skype Extension add-on that was causing the issue. That add-on highlights phone numbers within a web page allowing you to dial them by clicking on them, if you use Skype and SkypeOut (which I do).
I guess, I’ll have to wait for a further update, or work around, to get that facility back. I don’t use it a lot (I don’t use the phone a lot really, as I much prefer email), but it can be useful at times.
Tags: because it contains errors, cannot be displayed, firefox, images, message saying that, phone numbers, safe mode, skype, skypeout, thumbnails, web page, windows machine
