DJ FCC Rules Limited VOIP Service Free From Phone Rules
By Mark Wigfield
Of DOW JONES NEWSWIRES
WASHINGTON (Dow Jones)--The Federal Communications Commission ruled Thursday that a limited type of Internet telephone technology isn't subject to the rules that govern conventional phone service.
It was the agency's first decision on so-called voice-over-Internet-protocol, or VOIP, a technology seen as revolutionizing the phone industry. The ruling was intended to send a signal that the FCC has no interest in heavy regulation of the efficient new technology.
But the decision affects only a limited type of service that is unlikely to hit the mass market anytime soon. Offered by a company called Pulver.com, the service is free, open only to members, and doesn't use conventional phones, the legacy public switched phone network or official phone numbers.
Pulver.com's Free World Dialup service is more akin to communication between two computers using a broadband connection to the Internet, which the FCC has never regulated.
Shortly after deciding the Pulver matter, the FCC turned to a broader inquiry into Internet telephony that does use at least parts of the conventional public switched network.
The regulatory issues are far more complicated for these services. That is because the switched network is governed by a complex set of rules and agreements governing billions of dollars of payments between long-distance and local phone carriers, mandates to provide emergency 911 service, and the capability for law enforcement to easily tap phones when warranted.
"There is not much significance" to the Pulver.com decision, said Robert Atkinson, a former top telephone regulator at the FCC who is now policy director for an independent think tank at Columbia University called the Institute for Teleinformation.
"The idea of two people talking to each other on computer doesn't matter much," he says.
The decision "puts a stake on one end of the spectrum" in VOIP technology, he says. The broader rulemaking "will fill in the blanks." |
