Regulators should ‘embrace’ and ‘empower’ the end users of phone ...

Group, which runs a backbone Internet Protocol network in Texas for VoIP companies like Skype, has a forbearance petition before the FCC seeking a ruling that IP providers need not pay access charges to interconnect with PSTN carriers (CD March 17 p7). Regulators who want to be pro-competitive should “let technologies take their natural cycles,” Feldman said, comparing traditional switched phone networks to Polaroid cameras. Polaroid was a “fantastic technology” that people have a “romantic fascination” with, but Polaroid is dead because a better technology has made it obsolete, he said. Holding back innovation is “not American” and hurts the economy, he said. “I'm not talking Democrat or Republican. It’s just wrong.” Incumbent PSTN technology still dictates how the phone system is regulated, Feldman said. Incumbents force all phone companies, regardless of technology, to use phone numbers and be part of the same billing scheme, he said. “If you don’t, you're doing something literally fraudulent,” he said. AT&T and other incumbents can’t trace calls from the Feature Group network back to a human, which is why a cellphone will identify a Skype call as an “unavailable” number, he said. But though the call is from a real person, AT&T fines Feature Group for fraud, said Feldman. AT&T has rebuked Feature Group’s attempts to set up an interconnection agreement that would fix the problem, and Texas courts and regulators have pointed Feature Group to the FCC’s door, he said.