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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 big difference between VoIP companies like Vonage and the traditional phone companies is that Vonage doesn't manage any physical connection to its customers. The implications of that one fact are huge.
First, it means they aren't a natural monopoly. Anyone can start a similar business without investing millions of dollars in each community. The regulatory approach to a non-monopoly should be completely different.
Second, it means that taxes based on physical connections aren't appropriate. Vonage shouldn't charge for the Universal Connectivity Fund. Granted, there may be good reason to create a Universal Broadband Fund, but that would be based on charges levied by the ISPs, not by secondary service providers.
First, let's clear up a definition issue here: The VoIP we're talking about here isn't the actual protocol, it's the use of VoIP to provide a connection into the PTSN, effectively it's POTS-over-VoIP.
POTS is a regulated competitve system at this point. You've got the ILEC former monopolies who now are required to bend over backwards to let CLECs into their interfaces. However, everybody in the POTS business is required to submit their payments into the USF, provide free priority 911 connectivity, and other basic things. What the POTS-over-VoIP services are trying to sell themselves as is a replacement to phone service that costs less, but they're making a lot of their cost savings by cutting corners on the services that the companies they're trying to compete with are required to provide.
That's unfair competition, and something the regulators need to step in on.
I know this is kinda redundant... but does anyone know how much a phone call really costs? Here in the states we pay way more than most other countries... Traviling abroad showed me that. In fact calling home (Texas) from Greece, or Spain, is cheaper than calling from austin to san antonio... I mean really halfway around the world cheaper than a couple hundred miles. The only reason why it's so expensive here is that we have more regulations than other countries, and fewer telcoms. If the price was lowered to next to nothing, at least somewhere within the ballpark of what the costs are, then the govenment could reap large amounts of money, not from the high taxes but from high use...
I like replies better than Karma, even if they are flames, because that tells me I got someone thinking.
Once there is enough high speed IP deployed, we can bypass the traditional voice phone network entirely, and run voice over encrypted end to end IP connections. Imagine "dialing" in the form of domain names. The only reason the regulators are getting into this is because VoIP services are interfacing with the existing voice network. More work needs to be done to phase that voice network out of existance (which will be a long slow thing).
now we need to go OSS in diesel cars
The whole reason why telephone providers are so closely regulated by the government is that the market for land lines is a natural monopoly - that is, competition is impossible because a competitor would have to install a redundant network, which is prohibitively expensive. So, since monopoly is inevitable, the government regulates it to ensure the providers don't take unfair advantage of the monopoly.
With VoIP, there is no monopoly. There can be dozens of different VoIP providers just as there's dozens (ok thousands) of pr0n sites or dozens of online bookstores.
When we have a new technology, why don't we rethink the way we regulate things instead of just applying the old regulations to the new technology regardless of whether or not it makes sense to do so?
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You pay your telephony/data tax/fee when you pay your ISP, you should not have to pay again when you use send one kind of bit/byte as apposed to a different kind of bit/byte.
If you do have to pay then you should be able to subtract the amount from the tax/fee you pay though your ISP.
Now the moment one of these DSL providers starts connecting lines to peoples houses or other locations then they are a Telco and should act like one.
I think this is more like a regulatory barrier to entry into voice communications or protectionism for the existing Telco.
I think the question should be "how on earth are they going to regulate it", not when. VOIP is just data on the network. How long until there's an open source VOIP solution widely adopted without centralized control?
It isn't going to be possible to regulate it without extensive packet monitoring.
Unbreakable toys can be used to break other toys.
Impossible to track. A packet is a packet.
.ogg file attached?
It's all handled in software too. Calling Roger Wilco or PalTalk "phone services" stretches the definition to the snapping point. For strict peer to peer I could write software myself so regulating the software is pointless to even try. I know tons of teenagers who could do it as well. It isn't rocket science. It isn't even computer science.
And then what do you call an email with an
Regulationg computer to computer voice transmission over IP makes no more logical, or legal, sense than regulating two tin cans and a piece of string.
I own my tin can. Granny owns hers. If granny lives across the country we lease rights to the string already. If she lives across the hall we even own the bloody string.
KFG
I think your first point is off in tinfoil-hat-land, but I agree with your second point. I saw so many inititives and measures pushed thru behind closed doors in seattle after only a token guesture at discussion that these days I don't even bother voting any more.
It's not like they aren't going to do what the hell they want anyways.
Corporations are created by individuals, not the government. They are only chartered by the government. Corporations are comprised of people. To infringe on the rights of corporations would infringe on the rights of individuals. All rights that people posses come from natural law, not the government. The only rights government has is those that the citizenry grant it. Corporation and tax laws view corporations as legal persons. You do not seem to understand the Bill of Rights, or to have read it. See the 9th Amendment, which clearly states that simply because a right is not listed in the aforementioned document, that does not mean it is not retained by the states and the people. This is akin to asking why raping a woman is not legal, simply because the right not to be raped is not explicitly listed. If I were you, I'd transfer, or barring that, do some independent study/thinking, because you aren't getting enough from wherever you are attending. You deserve to be better educated.
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I worked on a major telco VoIP project and we were working with SIP as a real telephone alternative. Cisco was involved as were other vendors. The whole scope of our project was to replace analog telephony with VoIP with a reliable and clean alternative. VoIP traffic has its own inherent problems which the industry is still trying to resolve.
So, if the telco I worked for was trying to replace conventional telephone service with VoIP then why wouldn't it be considered a telephone service?
Banjo - The more I know about Windoze, the more I love *nix
C'mon, a Public Utilities Board, who make their living imposing regulations telephone companies want to regulate telephone traffic, and everyone is surprised? PUC's exist because of a lack of competition. VoIP is competitive and therefore poses a threat to their existence. It is self-serving mission creep that they should extend their own charter by thinking that they exist to regulate all forms of voice traffic. What is surprising, is, that it took this long. It was inevitable.
POTS: Plain Old Telephone System
PSTN: Public Switched Telephone Network
ILEC: Incumbent Local Exchange Carrier
CLEC: Competitive Local Exchange Carrier
USF: Universal Service Fund
I've asked this before, I'll ask it again.
Maybe I'm being thick here. It seems to me that what we need for VOIP is a peer-to-peer protocol, and network cards/stacks that have a guarantee of service, where in this case, the service is time-based. Now if I'm not mistaken, the Linux 2.4 kernel has 'quality of service' flags for network traffic (including IPv4), and IPv6 has it built into the actual model! Now if this is the case, there should be no need for VOIP "providers," other than ISPs that don't explicitly deny a particular traffic type. Now this is all theoretical for real-time conversations, but in practice it's much easier--people use things like teamspeak all the time!
Can someone please tell me why we are looking to a centralised (and billable, taxable) VOIP strategy, instead of a direct peered (or even client/server) model? I honestly don't get it!
"People who do stupid things with hazardous materials often die." -- Jim Davidson on alt.folklore.urban
This is incorrect. People don't have the right to form corporations, that's a privaledge that is granted by the government. In exchange for the benefits of operating as a corporation (as opposed to a partnership) the corporation has to submit to any restrictions that the government imposes.
The same deregulation allows VOIP like Skype simply to take off without any questions being asked (so far).
If the US were to regulate VOIP and tax it or otherwise inhibit its implementation it will just shoot itself in the foot and hobble into the "human communication over IP" era. Europe, Japan and most of the rest of the world will find no fault in VOIP.
It remains to be seen if this is entirely true, former national carriers could try to make a last ditch effort but most of them are in such deep financial trouble that they really are dangerously close to bankrupcy.
Of those to whom much is given, much is required.