State, Federal Oversight Needed for VoIP, Panelists Say
As VoIP evolves, states and the FCC should exercise regulatory control, with the understanding that IP-based telecom and older modalities will co-exist for a long time, said panelists at the winter meeting of the National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners in Washington, D.C. VoIP is telecom’s future, but its proliferation will be matched only by its malleability and capacity to spawn new technologies, they said Monday.
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“VoIP is part of the present and part of the future. It can encompass video, voice, e-mail, instant messaging, text messaging. This multiplicity of forms will lead to more forms,” said Hank Hulquist, AT&T vice president for federal regulatory. “There’s going to be tremendous proliferation in ways we can barely imagine, like using voice to play Xbox. There’s going to be a plethora of IP voice modalities.”
Consumers will need state and federal regulators on their side as the proliferation accelerates, said Christopher White of the New Jersey Department of Public Advocacy. “The states and the federal government are going to have to assure that controls are adequate to protect consumers.” White said the historic regulatory structures developed for switched telephony should be kept in place to assure that IP phone service has the necessary consumer protections. White said the 1996 Telecom Act authorizes that approach, saying Sections 251, 252 and 271 all have language applicable to VoIP.
Federal support for universal service is part of that package, said Daniel Mitchell, a vice president of NTCA: “It’s critical that the FCC get it right.” The rural phone companies his group represents want to see a five-to-15-year transition in which VoIP providers gradually assume responsibility for paying into the federal USF, which should be reconfigured to emphasize broadband, he said. VoIP providers also should have to pay access rates, he said.
“VoIP is a real-life example of creative destruction in action,” Mitchell said. “It’s destroying the legacy system, and it’s only a matter of time before switched telephony is obsolete.” In the process, states and the FCC will have to rethink regulatory structures that are based on the old ways, he said.
As broadband replaces copper, some USF obligation, whether state or federal, should be mandated, said Daniel Lyons, assistant professor at Boston College Law School: “There is a strong argument for state control, because each state has different vulnerable populations.” In telecom regulation, California tends to look out for its financially disadvantaged residents, while Nebraska puts an emphasis on the disadvantages of living in a remote setting, he said. “There are different demands in different states,” Lyons said. “That may not mean there are 50 programs, which would not be feasible, but the local need is there.”
The legacy system and VoIP will be operating at the same time for a long time, participants said. Hulquist said AT&T expects fiber to replace copper as data flow increases. “It was easier to deal with a uniform technology than it is with technologies varying all the time,” he said. “That’s what argues for technology-neutral regulation.” Mitchell sketched a transitional period lasting “for many years to come” in which low-demand customers continue to use copper while high- demand customers get fiber.
The FCC hasn’t decided whether to handle VoIP as information or telecom “because it isn’t satisfied with either answer that’s available,” Hulquist said. “They view the choices as not meeting the needs of the framework.” Mitchell traced the agency’s seeming indecisiveness to the change of administration between a Bush government intent on relaxing regulation and an Obama government more inclined to regulate.