STANFORD, CALIFORNIA -- Action to promote Voice over IP technology and pave the way for its growth could occur as soon as this year, if the head of the Federal Communications Commission can arrange it.
Congress probably won't act on pending bills to clarify VOIP regulation in the current session, but FCC Chairman Michael Powell hopes to make progress on the issue this year. Powell made his comments to Silicon Valley entrepreneurs and venture capitalists at the Always On Network LLC's AO2004 conference at Stanford University here this week.
Study Continues
The question whether VOIP should be treated as a telephone service or an information service has implications for taxation as well as issues such as 911 emergency call services and wiretapping.
Senator John Sununu, New Hampshire Republican, has introduced a bill in the Senate that would exempt VOIP from most regulation. A House bill sponsored by Representative Charles "Chip" Pickering Jr., a Mississippi Republican, has a similar aim.
An FCC public comment period on VOIP closed Wednesday. The agency expects to look at the comments and make some decisions on the issue by the end of this year, though some aspects of VOIP regulation, such as how much a carrier must pay to terminate a call, may not be settled for years, FCC policy chief Robert Pepper says.
Congressional action is the surest way to clarify VOIP regulation, Powell said. The FCC can take bold action but can also be sued under the claim that its moves violate the Telecommunications Act of 1996, he noted.
A blog-like online chat of lively commentary was projected on a huge screen to one side of the stage, where Powell was interviewed by Stanford Law Professor Larry Lessig and Steve Jurvetson, a managing partner of Draper Fisher Jurvetson. The conversation with Powell was also Webcast, as are other parts of the conference.
Chat comments ranged from gripes about other countries' more widespread and better broadband services, to questions for Powell and cheeky observations. During a discussion of how communication infrastructure issues have changed with the emergence of wireless and satellite broadband, blogger "a Jedi" intoned, "This is not the pipe you're looking for."
Staving off States
Another VOIP battleground is in state governments, which have fiercely resisted giving up their traditional telecommunications taxes and regulations when it comes to VOIP, Powell said. He expects the fight to be heated.
"This is the Internet tax moratorium times 1000," Powell said, invoking the ongoing legal battle over taxing e-commerce.
States should not regulate VOIP, at least in terms of economic issues such as pricing, Powell said in an interview later at the event.
"As far as economic regulation ... I'm skeptical about regulation of that at all, but if it is, to me it's a federal issue," Powell said.
"I think we're going to do this nation a big disservice if we try to chop the Internet into 51 pieces and every state is allowed to regulate economically any way it chooses. That's no indictment of states, only as the good of the whole won't be maximized," he said. "You're going to have a hard time. It's one thing to say, 'Should you do it?' but I don't even understand how they would do it."
Peggy Watt of PC World contributed to this report.
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