Pulver Keynote Fall VON

Jeff Pulver opened up the conference with a call for Internet freedom and user empowerment. In addition to voice services, Jeff pointed out that broadcast TV is now acceptable over the public Internet, and suggested that this will be even more disruptive to the marketplace than voice applications. But this is threatened by governments and businesses that seek to control the applications that consumers run over these networks. Jeff issued this set of consumer rights that he feels need to be protected:

• Users should have access to their choice of legal content
• Users should be able to run applications of their choice
• Users should be permitted to attach any devices they choose to the connection in their homes

As an exampe, Jeff brought up the frequently mentioned Vonage phone line used by the Mayor of New Orleans to speak to President Bush. He pointed out that if the hotel, or some other network provider connecting the Mayor to the Internet had been blocking VoIP traffic, that call wouldn't have gone through. Or that if that customer had failed to register for E911 services and had been cut off by Vonage, the call wouldn't have gone through. So we "got lucky" in that case, but Jeff points out that it might have been otherwise.

Global IP Alliance is an organization that Jeff has created to fight for consumer rights, worldwide. Website -- http://www.ipall.org/