Umniah’s Comments To The TRC’s Consultation Document;
“Notice Requesting Comments :On The Implementation Of Voice
Communication Services Delivered Using The Internet Protocol”.
TABLE OF CONTENTS:
I. Introduction ...1 II. How Should the TRC Approach VoIP? ...1
A. It is Not Necessary for all Voice Communications Services to Provide the Same Standard Features as Traditional
Telephone Services...1 B. Regulation Should Not be Based on Whether Services are
Similar From A Customers’ Perspective and, therefore, the TRC Should not Draw a Distinction Between the
Regulation of Services that Are Perceived By Customers to be Identical to Traditional Services and Those that are not. Instead, Umniah Believes that a Consistent “Light
Handed” Regulation Should be Applied to all Voice Suppliers – Regardless of Distribution Platform – that Lack Significant Market Power, but that Stringent Regulation Should be Applied to VoIP Providers that Possess Significant Market Power Over Broadband
Facilities...1 C. The TRC Should Make No Distinction Between the
Regulation of “Secondary Line Services” and “Primary” Line Services – Rather, this distinction is for the
Consumer to Decide ...2 D. If A Threshold Is Introduced, It Should Be A Threshold
For Review Of The Situation, Not A Threshold For Automatic Imposition Of Identical Or Similar Obligations To That Applied To The Services Provided By Incumbent Fixed Line Operators. ...2 III. Consumer Issues...3
A. Reasonable Consumer Information Could Be Required Where Services Look and Feel Like a Traditional Phone
Service, but special care should taken not to over do it...3 IV. Numbering, Location and Access...4
A. Consumers of VoIP services Should Have the Choice of Geographic and Non-Geographic Numbers from existing
and new number ranges...4 B. Callers Should Not be Able to Identify the Subscription
Service of the Called Party...7 C. Existing Methods Used Today in the Traditional
Telephony Regime For Emergency Services Should Remain. Allocated Number Ranges are irrelevant to
Emergency Services...7 D. If a Mobile Handset is not Enough, then There is simply is
No sufficiently high Value in Having at least one means of highly reliable means of Access to and Service From
Emergency Services Under Current Market Conditions ...7 E. Access to 08 and 09 Services Should be Optional for VoIP
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F. It is Reasonable to Allow Nomadicity for IP-based Voice Communications Services., Moreover, Network Integrity Requirements Should be Studied Thoroughly Before Developing any Proposed Regulations to limit
Nomadicity...8 V. Interconnection and Quality of Service Issues ...9
A. VoIP Service in Jordan is too Nascent to Mandate any
Kind of QoS Service Requirements...9 B. There is No Reason to Impose Carrier Pre-Selection on IP
Providers at this Time ...9 VI. Conclusion...9
I. Introduction
On 9 May 2005, the TRC issued a Notice Requesting Comments on the Implementation of Voice Communications Services Delivered Using Internet Protocol (hereafter, the “Notice”). Without question, the introduction of VoIP has vexed regulators around the world – all of which are struggling to figure out how to regulate VoIP (if at all) and how the introduction of VoIP affects key public interest components of the business such as universal service, inter-carrier compensation, quality of service, interconnection, access to broadband, and so forth. Umniah urges the TRC – consistent with international best practices – to keep a “light regulatory” touch on VoIP in order to allow this technology to take hold. Equally important, the TRC should pro-actively take steps to facilitate the deployment of this important new technology, such as permitting consumers to have the choice of geographic and non-geographic numbers for VoIP services in new and existing ranges. Finally, Umniah urges the TRC to remember that VoIP is not a facility, but is a service that rides over broadband facilities. Thus, when considering whether or not to regulate VoIP, Umniah believes that this issue is not one of traditional switched telephony versus VoIP, but one of the incumbent’s significant market power over underlying broadband facilities.
Our specific responses to the TRC’s questions are set forth below:
II. How Should the TRC Approach VoIP?
A. It is Not Necessary for all Voice Communications Services to Provide the Same Standard Features as Traditional Telephone Services
One of the great things about VoIP is the enhanced features that traditional telephony may not be able to offer1 (e.g. location independence, presence awareness, video and text messaging …etc, that are tightly integrated with the voice component). In our view, this fact is not sufficiently emphasized in the Notice, and it gives the TRC consultation paper a rather negative overall connotation of “VoIP is a step back from traditional telephony”. Change and availability of variety are necessary precursors to development. Moreover, in the short and medium run VoIP will complement rather than replace traditional switched telephony in Jordan. Therefore, it would be wise to allow VoIP service providers to define the features that the consumers want based on demand and market forces at large rather than based on regulation.
B. Regulation Should Not be Based on Whether Services are Similar From A Customers’ Perspective and, therefore, the TRC Should not Draw a Distinction Between the Regulation of Services that Are Perceived By Customers to be Identical to Traditional Services and Those that are not. Instead, Umniah Believes that a Consistent “Light Handed” Regulation Should be Applied to all Voice Suppliers – Regardless of Distribution Platform – that Lack Significant
1 Take for example new services like “Genion” in Germany and “Fusion” in the UK, where customers are using special handsets that have combination GSM+VoIP+WiFi technology. The special Mobile handsets use WiFi inside the house to hop-on to the ADSL data network where they use VoIP technology to assume the geographic telephone number of the house and thus function as a cordless phone at home and GSM phone outside the home. In such cases the VoIP service works in parallel with the POTS home telephone sets. Moreover, the existing rather than a new Geographic number is used.
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Market Power, but that Stringent Regulation Should be Applied to VoIP Providers that Possess Significant Market Power Over Broadband Facilities
As a general rule, economic regulation should not be based on whether services are similar from the customer’s perspective, but rather on whether the provider has significant market power that will allow it to raise prices and restrict output. Clearly, new VoIP providers have no chance of significantly impacting the conditions of supply of telephony service. This is specially the case when the total penetration of Internet users in Jordan is reported at 6%.2 And, of these users, only a small portion has always-on broadband connections that could be suitable for IP telephony (5% of Jordanian households3), and an even smaller portion has an always-on connection and an interest in IP-telephony. It is therefore surprising that the TRC would dedicate so much of its already overstretched resources to trying to control such an insignificant market force. In short, IP-Telephony is insignificant to the regulatory environment in Jordan at this stage. The TRC should forebear from regulating any aspect of this “nascent” service in Jordan (particularly the rates, terms and conditions for retail service),4 for an over-zealous regulatory environment will damage the public interest rather than protect it.
This being said, incumbents will have a great incentive to sabotage new entry by VoIP providers. Unfortunately, this can be done relatively easy via port blocking the broadband connection or other types of technical degradation techniques. The incumbent also has both the incentive and the ability to unduly discriminate in favor of its own VoIP service at the expense of its rivals. For this reason, the TRC should establish strict enforcement rules and severe penalties should the incumbent fixed line operator seek to abuse its significant market power over the broadband pipe5.
C. The TRC Should Make No Distinction Between the Regulation of “Secondary Line Services” and “Primary” Line Services – Rather, this distinction is for the Consumer to Decide
There is no logical reason why the TRC should make a regulatory distinction between a “primary” line” or a “secondary” line – either the line can provide voice quality service, or it can’t.
D. If A Threshold Is Introduced, It Should Be A Threshold For Review Of The Situation, Not A Threshold For Automatic Imposition Of Identical Or Similar Obligations To That Applied To The Services Provided By Incumbent Fixed Line Operators.
2 Arab Advisors latest internet users data report
3 Latest press releases by JT state that there are 50,000 ADSL lines in the kingdom. This is while Department of Statistics figures show that there are 960,000 households. If we assume that 10% of these households will also be interested in IP-Telephony, then the total IP-Telephony market is 5K lines.
4 Of course the TRC should continue to aggressively protect IP-Telephony providers from any anti-competitive behavior by the other dominant operators. Anti-competitive behavior by the dominant operators can take the form of denial of access to bit-stream unbundled loops and other interconnection services, delay tactics, sabotage, abuse of dominance, …etc.
5 The TRC should also investigate whether the affiliate ISP of the incumbent fixed line operator possess significant market power in the data market or enjoys preferential treatment.
On the issue of determining when a service has become main-stream, please see the following example from the Irish regulatory authority ComReg where it deferred imposition of number portability for the 076 range until the market develops. See page 19 of http://www.comreg.ie/_fileupload/publications/ComReg04103.pdf:
“Full support for (non-geographic) number portability will be the main obligation on all service providers (ECS and PATS) availing of these numbers. However, to encourage their uptake, to minimise delays in introducing this new number range, and to minimise pressure on new operators, implementation of this obligation will not be phased in until a significant quantity of the ‘076’ numbers is actually in use 12 , or January
2007, whichever comes first.
12 This figure will be determined by ComReg in the light of circumstances as the market develops, but should not be less than 20,000 active users.”
III. Consumer Issues
A. Reasonable Consumer Information Could Be Required Where Services Look and Feel Like a Traditional Phone Service, but special care should taken not to over do it.
As noted above, Umniah believes that the TRC should impose a light regulatory touch to VoIP. This being said, VoIP is a new technology using broadband networks, which may not have the inherent redundancy or emergency services features that traditional POTS does. In order to minimize possible customer dissatisfaction, therefore, Umniah respectfully suggests that the TRC, working with the industry, establish a standard disclaimer that VoIP providers can use in their brochures (but not in a prominent way on the point of sale so as not to unfairly harm the nascent VoIP services) to inform the customer of what services are not available in comparison to the “Normal or Standard” telephone line. In our view, these “missing” standard features are limited to:
(1) In-line power is not available, so the phone might not function is case of power failure (Note that this is also not available in PBX and DECT phones with no labeling requirement6);
(2) Service is contingent on quality of selected Internet Service Provider. (Note for all practical purposes, IP-Telephony quality on broadband best-effort networks is quite acceptable, otherwise service providers would not be popping up all over the place trying to provide it.)
6 ‘In-line powering’ of terminals is a historic PSTN feature, which has not been extended by regulatory obligations onto newer systems, such as DECT and other cordless phones, PABXs and GSM terminals, cable TV networks providing telecommunications services, etc. The same treatment should be given to IP telephony and VoIP. The requirement for ‘in-line powering’ for ‘lifeline’ purposes is less acute today than it has been in the past, given that a very large proportion of individuals now carries a mobile phone, which will typically have charged batteries, and which could be used as an alternative means of reaching
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(3) That Emergency Services may not be available; (Note that although some Emergency Services might not accept to respond to help requests from Mobile or VoIP phones, this is a deficiency in the Emergency Services rather than the Mobile or VoIP technology7. Thus a labeling requirement being applied to VoIP devices is by its nature unfair.)
Not withstanding above, due to the “political winds” in the telecom industry the TRC might still want to apply a labeling requirement on VoIP devices. If this is the case, we suggest to the TRC not to be over zealous in this regard. It is unfair, unreasonable and disproportionate to require VoIP devices to be labeled as “dangerous” or “unsuitable” just because they are different. Umniah notes that the VoIP labeling regulations being considered in the United States will most probably be tempered by legal and technical challenges in the near future, and will most probably not be adopted in Europe and Asia.
IV. Numbering, Location and Access
A. Consumers of VoIP services Should Have the Choice of Geographic and Non-Geographic Numbers from existing and new number ranges
We would strongly recommend that IP-Telephony providers be allowed to have a choice between using Geographic and non-Geographic number ranges or using Direct-Inward-Dialing (DID)/Direct-Outward-Dialing (DOD) services.8 Class licensees and
system integrators will not be assigned number ranges (because their licenses don’t allow for it) but they still have the choice of subscribing to DID/DOD from existing fixed and mobile operators.9
DID and DOD services have been provided by JT over digital trunks for many years. As Mobile licensee’s switches naturally provide these same features, there is no reason why operators should not be able to provide these services as well. In so doing, the TRC helps create a vibrant wholesale market for DID/DOD services (from fixed and mobile operators),10 thus contributing significantly to Jordanian consumer welfare.
7 For example, traffic police respond to calls from Mobile phones who simply verbally provide the address of an accident. Umniah does not see why the other Emergency services are not encouraged to respond based on the caller-provided address. In fact, for many fixed telephones the address on record is not enough for Emergency service to reach the address, so a caller-provided address is the standard mode of operation in Jordan.
8 International practice shows that IP-telephony providers nearly always use Direct-Inward-Dialing (DID) services provided by their wholesale carriers (who are number range holders). The DID service consists of identifying the “called number” in the call header of the digital trunks connecting IP-Telephony provider to its wholesale carrier. This way, the IP-Telephony provider can route the incoming calls to the destination IP-Telephone using the provided DID header.
9 If for some reason the TRC did not allow IP-Telephony operators to subscribe to DID services from Jordanian fixed and mobile operators, then we expect that IP-telephony operators will probably (unfortunately) have to subscribe to DID services from international Number-Range-Holders as a replacement. Or lose out to foreign IP-Telephony operators.
10 DID is a retail and not an interconnection service. Therefore the Number-Range holder keeps all the termination revenue from the calls received on these DID numbers.
Moreover, one of the advantages of IP-Telephony is that the customer can have flexible numbering arrangements of being able to select more than one number for incoming calls. In these circumstances, IP-Telephony providers subscribe to “Direct-Inward-Dialing” service from more than one national or international “number-range holders” and deliver the calls received on these numbers to the associated customer.
This being said, some IP-Telephony service providers (who have individual licenses) may want their own number range. This number range might be geographic and non-geographic depending on customer demand11. Nonetheless, the number ranges should be (when possible) non-distinguishable from the number ranges provided to traditional telephony operators. This is necessary to remove the threat of discrimination against users of the nascent IP-Telephony service. Naturally, if the customer is not able to differentiate the service/operator by the dialed number, then discriminatory tactics by the dominant operators will fail.
Umniah believes that the TRC statement “The assignment of numbers from the National Numbering Plan “is based on the premise that the consumer should be able to tell something about a service (e.g. likely cost of call, the location of the caller etc.) from the number assigned to it” (emphasis supplied) is a static approach to a dynamic industry, that is no longer applicable in today’s modern IP world.
Traditionally, Numbering Plans were adopted to enable inter-carrier routing of traffic to be able to reach the correct address of the users on all the different networks. In some cases (depending on how the Numbering plans were constructed) it was possible to use the telephone number to deduce the cost of the call or the location of the called party. In other words, Numbering Plans were not designed for the purpose of deducing cost of call or location (or subscription service) of the called party.
To complicate matters further, VoIP uses the IP address to identify and route traffic to the user on the data network. The legacy telephone number merely acts as a pointer to the IP address. Accordingly it is no longer possible to continue to use the traditional telephone number for something it was never designed to do. It might still be possible (for the time being) to deduce the cost of call, but it is impossible to continue to deduce the location of the called party. Therefore it would be unreasonable for the TRC to insist on such associations between telephone number and location or service type.
In the time being, it is still possible for the caller to deduce the cost of the call. The principles are:
• If a call is terminated to a VoIP customer who is using a geographic
number from a number range directly allocated by TRC to that VoIP Service Provider: According to the Interconnection instructions, the VoIP service provider will receive a termination rate identical to the termination
11 WiFi based VoIP phones are expected to become more prevalent. These are not mobile because they do not support handover, but they are nomadic in the sense of being able to move from one WiFi hot spot to another. We expect that these new devices and other VoIP phones will find it suitable to use non-geographic numbers from new or existing number ranges.
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rate of incumbent fixed line operator.12 Therefore, it is expected that the retail rate to call such a customer from other networks will be identical to the rate to call a traditional fixed line.
• If a call is terminated to a VoIP customer using a geographic or
non-geographic number from another existing number range holder (for example using DID retail numbering service or similar arrangement):
Thecall will be received by number range holder and forwarded to the VoIP service provider. The caller will be charged (by his service provider) the same retail tariff to call the network of the number range holder
Umniah also does not agree with the TRC statement that “the main group of non-geographic numbers currently in use (those for mobile network services) denote a user with the ability to roam. Currently, voice communication services provided with IP technology are not directly comparable with mobile service as they do not (as yet) offer handover, so the user has only limited mobility. Hence, even if non-geographic numbers are assigned to an IP based voice communication service, it may be judicious to ensure that the number ranges selected are clearly differentiated from mobile services.”
Umniah does not see the relationship between handover or the ability to roam and number range allocation. Nonetheless, it might be preferred by individual licensees not to be allocated non-geographic number ranges similar to mobile number ranges, to avoid the misconceptions by callers that they might be making high tariff calls to Mobile. Nonetheless, the VoIP service provider should have the choice to change this position if consumer demand proved to be different than what we currently anticipate.
As mentioned before, some IP-Telephony operators could still be able to use DID services from mobile operators (given that both operators agree). In such cases a call to an IP-Telephone which is using a mobile number (by way of DID) would be charged as any other call to a mobile number.
An IP-Telephony user might very well want to have a number that is part of the Mobile Area code to make it possible for Mobile customers to call him at ON-NET rates.
We plead with the TRC not to put any limitations on numbering until VoIP services have had a chance to show their direction. In the mean time, IP telephony providers should be allowed
(1) To seek assignment in non-distinguishable geographic number ranges; (2) To seek assignment in non-geographic ranges (dedicated for services
which have termination rates that are similar to fixed networks); and (3) To be able to subscribe to “Direct-inward-Dialing” services from existing
“Number-Range holders”.
We recognize that item 1 and 2 might only be available to individual licensees.
12 IP-Telephony service providers have to provide termination rates at reciprocal basis with the Fixed incumbent operator. Interconnection Instructions, page 48 at ¶ 270.
B. Callers Should Not be Able to Identify the Subscription Service of the Called Party
Caller should not be able to identify the subscription service of the called party. This is personal (private) information of the called party, and the caller has no business knowing. If callers were able to identify the users of the IP-Telephones from the number, then the dominant operators could charge a higher rate or sabotage the quality of calls to these competitors’ customers with great effect.
C. Existing Methods Used Today in the Traditional Telephony Regime For Emergency Services Should Remain. Allocated Number Ranges are irrelevant to Emergency Services
The TRC might be confusing the type of numbers (geographic / non-geographic) given to VoIP service providers and the issue of location information/routing for emergency services. These topics are totally unrelated. Indeed, The European Regulators’ Group has made it very clear how the type of number range has nothing to do with location information for emergency access.
[T]he number range used by the caller does not affect the ability of the emergency service to locate the caller because the emergency service is normally dependent on a database for obtaining a street address. The problems of whether or not such a database is available and whether or not the call is made from home or away cannot be solved by the choice of number range.13
Jordan is a long way away from being able to use location address information with Emergency services. Today, even when the street address is known, Courier mail delivery is not practical. Couriers call just to inquire on how to reach the address. Until such time as the street addressing system becomes reliable, it is too early to think about tying the emergency system with telephone location information. We propose that the existing methods used today in the traditional telephony remain. It should nonetheless be possible to reverse lookup the name associated with public IPs dispensed by Jordanian ISPs.
D. If A Mobile Handset Is Not Enough And Only A Fixed Line Will Do, Then There Is No Sufficiently High Value In Having At Least One Means "Of Highly Reliable Means Of Access To" And "Service From" Emergency Services Under Current Market Conditions If as mentioned in the TRC’s Notice, Emergency services might choose not to respond to calls for help from Mobile Callers because “they are of unknown background”,14 then Umniah would venture to say that the Emergency Services seem not to be sufficiently helpful. Therefore, the value of access to emergency services from the supposedly “more-reliable” traditional fixed line is not high enough to warrant it to be mandated by the regulator at this stage.
13 See page 9 of http://www.erg.eu.int/doc/publications/erg0512_voip_common_statement.pdf.
14 Notice Page 10 ¶ 5: “Indeed current practice is that action [by Emergency services] is only taken for calls from geographic number as these are deemed to be the only number ranges that provide reliable location information (i.e. that based on fixed infrastructure rather than the word of a caller of unknown background)”.
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The TRC should first encourage "Jordanian Emergency Services" to benefit from the existing Mobile services (available to 30% of Jordanians) before trying to solve the "limitations" that haunt VoIP devices which are not able to provide the exact GPS location coordinates of the caller to Emergency Services.
E. Providing Access to 08 and 09 Services Should be Optional for VoIP Providers
Network operators are not required to provide access to 09 in the same sense that that they are required to provide access to emergency services. All network operators are simply required to connect the 09 numbers only when/if they are asked to by the 09 service provider. As such many 09 and 08 numbers are not accessible today from many of the existing networks because their providers are not interested.
Moreover, calls to a 08 number, although free to the end user, still require the IP-Telephony service provider to meter and rate these calls to be able to correctly bill the 08 service provider.
Accordingly, and because IP-Telephony service providers are a long way away from having any significant market power (only 5% of Jordanian households have broadband) both access to special 08 and 09 services should be optional to the IP-Telephony providers. And, in any event, the IP-Telephony service providers might not be able to justify the expense to connect links with the 08 or 09 service providers.
As to the issue of 09 and 08 numbers being network specific, Umniah’s view is that all 09 and 08 numbers in general should NOT be identifiable by network specific ranges. These services should have numbers that are accessible (or not) from all networks using the same number.
F. It is Reasonable to Allow Nomadicity for IP-based Voice Communications Services. Moreover, Network Integrity Requirements Should be Studied Thoroughly Before Developing any Proposed Regulations to limit Nomadicity.
Umniah believes that it is reasonable and it is also very desirable to allow “nomadicity” for IP-Telephony services. In fact, it is not possible to limit such nomadicity without significant investments. (Please note that we are not familiar with any public IP-Telephony service implementation where “nomadicity” has been limited by the regulator.) Umniah suggests that Network integrity requirements to limit nomadicity be studied thoroughly before considering any such regulations. (It would be highly irregular to do so.) More specifically, Umniah suggests that the service fluctuations are not high. Normally a G711 voice codec uses 64Kbps while an alternative G723 voice codecs uses about 8Kbps. In all cases the amount of bandwidth required for a good quality call represents only a small fraction of the broadband bandwidth normally available to the user IP-Telephony user. We suggest that the TRC not be concerned with the issue of fluctuations or greater exposure to intrusion caused by nomadicity and be more concerned by sabotage of the service by competing IP-Telephony service providers (especially if they have control over “essential facilities” or control bandwidth concentration points or control bundled ADSL+VoIP customer equipment).
V. Interconnection and Quality of Service Issues
A. VoIP Service in Jordan is too Nascent to Mandate any Kind of QoS Service Requirements The issue of QoS mandates on VoIP providers can not be considered without considering matching QoS mandates on all the ISPs, JT's data network and the internet at large. We have to remember that the internet is a best-effort network. Accordingly, the most used mechanism for quality in IP-Telephony implementations is over-provisioning. Operators will always find it more cost effective to over-provision the amount of bandwidth used than to implement any of the fancy technical solutions mentioned in the TRC’s document. But this does not give the service provider the ability to guarantee the quality in any way. In fact saving the replacement of the internet nothing will. We suggest that it is too early to mandate any kind of quality of service from IP-Telephony providers. Once the service reaches the main stream, the TRC always has the option of issuing another consultation to investigate what QoS mandates could and/or should be imposed.
B. There is No Reason to Impose Carrier Pre-Selection on IP Providers at this Time
We believe that IP-Telephony will be used to compliment the other telecommunication services available to the customer. Accordingly, IP-Telephony is by itself a selection by the customer of an alternative carriers, and as such there is no reson to impose Carrier Pre-Selection. Once the service reaches the main stream, the TRC could issue another consultation to investigate whether carrier pre-selection mandates should be imposed.
VI. Conclusion
In sum, the introduction of VoIP holds much promise for the people of Jordan. For this reason, Umniah urges the TRC – consistent with international best practices – to keep a “light regulatory” touch on VoIP in order to allow this technology to take hold. Umniah also believes that the TRC should pro-actively take steps to facilitate the deployment of this important new technology, such as permitting consumers to have the choice of geographic and non-geographic numbers in new and existing number ranges with their VoIP services. Finally, because VoIP is not a facility, but is a service that rides over broadband facilities, the TRC must take steps to ensure that the owners of the broadband pipes that possess significant market power do not take measures to discriminate or sabotage against VoIP providers.