I suppose that one of the problems with the PUC stepping up to the plate is that once they get their noses under the tent, they'll want to stay for dinner. How do you feel about such things as regulators having a say in how voip and Internet Telephony are derived, and billed for, and offered in general.. wrt access charges, universal funding, e911, etc. Allowing regulators to begin measuring services which are patently "Internet-related" may have dire consequences further on down the road, as they say.
And yet, since the ILECs and MSOs have been awarded monopoly powers as providers of physical distribution for their respective forms of media, I agree that they should meet some level of minimum performance criteria. Where do you find, and how do you reach, a happy balance between these two scenarios, between:
(a), where the regulators latch onto this new medium and run away with themselves by attempting to bring 'Net services under the umbrella rules of the PSTN, and
(b) where they simply assure that the monop dudes are doing right by their paying public?
Comments, CB, anyone? FAC |
