I have been reading this article with some interest by M Giordano where he says;

Broadband providers, particularly those with limited resources, such as hotels and airports are growing fond of this new revolution of broadband regulation.
It cited an IBA report on Jeff Pulver who wasn’t able to make use VoIP over the hotel’s broadband connection where he was staying although he could connect his home cable box and transfer TV feed from home to hotel in August last year.

The hotel in question - Le Meridien was then accused of attempting to cause difficulty for VoIP users to evade in-room phone charges by the IBA news article.

He further writes that broadband providers are blocking calls over IP or any kind of data transfer is akin to what is going on between the traditional phone line providers and VoIP operators where each side wants to make more money damaging the other saying;
The situation which has resulted in the old AT&Ts and Verizons of the brick-and-mortar world seeing themselves held up against the Googles and Skypes of the internet


He also writes;
It seems VoIP’s dependance on broadband providers could be it’s one major downfall, something which could slow the VoIP adoption as more and more businesses see ways to save money, or earn more, by blocking access to internet telephony.
I would like to know, if VoIP moves away from dependency over broadband providers, and set up own internet services, how can it cut the cost to long distance telephony? The charm of VoIP lies in the fact that it provides dirt cheap calls and in my opinion, the VoIP companies are not out there to make money through calls but to make money indirectly from the communities they are trying to build on their networks or capture from the market and bring it onto their fold.



Lastly, as for deliberately blocking VoIP calls; if Le Meridien did this, it was rather a cheap ploy to earn a few pennies more on calls. What is this? If they wanted to make more money from phone calls, they can easily hike the rates of the rooms they are renting out to guests by a few dollars more? I for one wouldn’t mind paying 5-10 dollars extra on my already high room bills in a fancy hotel like Le Meridien for a full range of service including making IP based calls!



I would like to hear more on this from VoIP enthusiasts and watchers.