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California PUC Calls For A Public Hearing On VoIP
Vick points to this story at Voxilla.com, which says that "A California Public Utilities Commissioner has called for public hearings on the agency's recent demand that Voice over IP service providers apply and be certified as full-fledged telephone companies." The anti-regulation arguments, though, mostly seem to hinge on timing and protocol -- I wish more objectors would argue that there are already too many phone regulations, instead of seeming to promise a boatload more captured users (dollars) if we just let VoIP develop for a few years before unchaining the regulators.
The Nero Tech Center has more info on this matter, including several backstories on VoIP and anti-regulation arguments.
No, the TDM conversion cannot be regulated because of theo the encryption methods used, but due to the nature of the internet (which is a link-state network), the VoIP sessions can be sniffed anywhere online through special token-ring applications as long as you have access to at least one of the "Global Eight" routers which run the internet. It's really too long to explain, but a nice summary of the whole system is at the Nero Center for Digital Telecommunications
Thanks, that was an interesting read, I didn't know the origins of VoIP and Nero Tech cleared that up. I hope at least some of these arguments are presented to the PUC.
Nero Tech is soo much ahead of the curve than slashdot will ever be.