Bill Hints At FCC Regulation Of Voice-Over-IP?

Anonymous Coward passed along an interesting bill in the U.S. House which he says will be voted on tomorrow (Tuesday). The original H.R. 1291 limited the FCC's powers. This amendment adds language that could be interpreted to expand the FCC's jurisdiction to include voice-over-IP transmissions. This page, at least, evinces great fear over that possibility. But I don't think that's what it means. Read more...

What pulver.com says is that H.R. 1291 "caves in to the Bell Companies and opens the door for the FCC to regulate and impose access charges on IP voice services." But what does the bill really say?

The original bill prohibits the FCC from taxing service providers by the minute:

"...the Commission shall not impose on any interactive computer service ... or other information service provider any access charge for the support of universal service that is based on a measure of the time that telecommunications services are used in the provision of such interactive computer service or information service."

The amendment, which is what is being protested, changes "interactive computer service or other information service provider" to "Internet access service." But the change that's causing concern is the final paragraph which was added by Rep. Fred Upton (R-MI):

"Nothing in this subsection shall preclude the Commission from imposing access charges on the providers of Internet telephone services, irrespective of the type of customer premises equipment used in connection with such services."

OK, so it's saying that this bill will not prohibit the FCC from regulating voice over IP - but since when does it have that power to begin with?

Does the bill's language give the agency that power? Does it hint that maybe in future the feds will crack down on multiplayer games with voice messaging, or PGPvoice?

Or, is it just, as one slash coder commented, "like telling the FCC they are not prohibited from taxing waffle irons" -- a silly and unnecessary piece of CYA?

I don't think it's either. I spoke with Dave Farber at the FCC, and he indicates the agency is not interested in regulating the internet. It's historically been very hands-off and there's no reason to think that will change. This pending legislation seem to be just Congress's way of saying "we're not ruling anything out" -- it doesn't mean that such regulation is on the horizon. So there's no cause for panic.

Update: CNET's story is the paranoid version; ZDnet's is a little more reasonable.

Comments

Who can leverage this?

[Manax]

I just had cable access installed a week or two ago, and I chatted with the guy doing the install regarding voice over IP. He told me that he was so happy with it that he canceled his long distance service.

I think the issue at stake here isn't whether the FCC will jump in on it's own and try to regulate or tax VoIP, but that the big long distance players will make demands regarding "unfair competition" or "theft of service" or "infrastructure failure" or "collapse of civilization" or whatever.

Similarly, the local providers might get involved, in the same way that there had been rumblings around charging for data access through phone lines.

Obviously the local players haven't been able to force the FCC to regulate data access, but now with both the long distance and local providers, that's a lot of money threatened.

If there is a bit of wiggle room, some group of corporations will probably throw their weight behind it and turn into a football field.

I realize that the long distance providers also are providing data access, but I doubt they are enlightened enough to just let go of the voice business and just do data.