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December 11, 2003
The FCC's Sneak Attack on VOIP... and the Real Issue
Jeff Pulver has a good piece on CNet about the FCC's actions on voice over IP.
I think it's appropriate for the FCC to consider the issues that
VOIP raises, especially with state regulators already jumping in and
imposing unnecessary regulation. But I agree with Jeff that they
shouldn't do so by sneak attack. FCC Chairman Powell is
apparently even considering ruling on some of the VOIP issues before
starting a public rulemaking proceeding. That's the wrong way to
go about addressing this important set of questions.
As I said at the FCC VOIP hearing last week, the real issue is the
transformation from the Internet as a subset of telecom to telecom as a
subset of the Internet. That means treating voice as an
application that can run on any platform, not as the platform
itself. The regulatory status of VOIP is just the tip of the
iceberg.
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Posted by Kevin Werbach at December 11, 2003 2:25 PM
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