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Federal Court Throws Out Minnesota VoIP Regulation

Posted by timothy on from the and-good-riddance dept.

An anonymous reader submits: "Voxilla reports that the FCC will announce Friday that 'a federal court has issued a permanent injunction against a recent ruling by the Minnesota Public Utilities Commission to regulate Voice over IP provider Vonage as a telephone company.' This is a significant move towards stopping recent movement by states to regulate VoIP -- most notably, California vs. VoicePulse and Wisconsin vs. Packet8."

10 of 92 comments (clear)

  1. What constitutes a telephone company? by Max+Romantschuk · · Score: 4, Interesting

    What is the fundamental difference between a traditional telephone company and purely VoIP-based companies? VoIP is slowly making it's way into traditional phone companies, does this make them less of a phone company?

    I'd say the difference is quite minimal for the end user.

    I'm just rambling, but I'd sure like to hear my fellow Slashdotters' thoughts.

    --
    .: Max Romantschuk :: http://max.romantschuk.fi/
    1. Re:What constitutes a telephone company? by I8TheWorm · · Score: 4, Interesting

      I have to agree a little. The only difference I can see is one is a service you explicitly pay for, and the other is built on a service that you already explicitly pay for.

      What's the reason for regulation of regular telephony companies anyway? Rate regulation is one of them, and that wouldn't really apply to VoIP, since the service it flies on is generally already regulated by the FCC (http://www.fcc.gov/broadband/).

      I can't see any reason to regulate a service that runs on a regulated service... seems like it's from the Department of Redundancy Department.

      --
      Saying Android is a family of phones is akin to saying Linux is a family of PCs.
    2. Re:What constitutes a telephone company? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Interesting

      The main differnce is the infrastructure.
      Traditional phone companies, have to run towers, wires and connect the planet. Which usually means that they will completely own the infrastrucute, and thus what can and can't pass through it. Hence you get a monopoly like MaBell. This is why the FCC stepped in originally, to protect the consumer from unfair inflation hikes. How can you have capitislm when you have no option? (That isn't being patriotic, more or less, I like to save money)

      VoIP on the other hand is simply more data, on the internet, and since there is a standards (i assume) my VoIP company can interface with your VoIP company, and both of us will be in direct competion. Thus the FCC shouldn't need to regulate based on consumer protection.
      The other problem w/ the FCC stepping in is, what determines VoIP? Will my Roger Wilco voice chat's with people in game come under the FCC rulings? Will AOL IM then be under they're control, (that might be a good thing, still waiting for a universial IM system)? Then how long before forum posts like this are considred in the domain of the FCC? (ok that's streching it a little, but you get my point)

  2. Isn't Echelon enough already? by jkrise · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Why should there be any more regulation when the very data can be captured easily?

    and, on a related note, will Microsoft be compelled to register as a bank? People use their technology to do online banking you see...

    -

    --
    If you keep throwing chairs, one day you'll break windows....
  3. Hmm by arvindn · · Score: 4, Insightful

    At first I thought its a nice thing that courts and lawmakers at least partially seem to understand that the internet is different from conventional channels, with some hope that in the future they would also understand that software is different from other arts. Then I realized that all this could be merely because there aren't any uber-corporations interested brib^W lobbying politicians to tax the internet the way they do for software patents, ridiculous copyright laws etc.

  4. My 73 yo father by G3ckoG33k · · Score: 4, Interesting

    My 73 yo father switched to broadband (10 Mbit/sec), voip, etc some two years ago. He surfs, reads the news, etc. He also pays all his bills via the net and is fighting hard to get me do it too - "Come on, it's really easy", he says. Not only that, know he wants me to install Linux on his machine so "he can see what all the fuzz is about". No, he never had a technical diploma of any sort.

    Now, he bugs me with his fancy new voip connection. But, I am sure he never lobbied in Minnesota for their decision.

  5. Spam/no-call? by deltagreen · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Vonage had maintained that it does not provide telephone service. Instead, lawyers for Vonage contended, the company offers data services over the internet

    Where does this put VoIP with regards to telemarketers? If it's a data service, the FTC no-call list can't be applied, can it? Does this mean a call from a telemarketer to a VoIP-phone could be classified as spam?

  6. this might be bad by c4ffeine · · Score: 5, Insightful

    What I'm afraid of is politicians that don't understand voip. Knowing them, they'll probably apply a tax to help regular phone companies "remain competitive". They'll then limit this technology, perhaps when the lobbyists demand it, perhaps when they decide that it's a threat to homeland security. Or, the phone companies could sue for some reason- unfair competition? copyright infringement? and kill it that way. I hate to be cynical like this, but politicians are just that way.

    --
    "73% of quotes on the Internet are made up" -Ben Franklin
    1. Re:this might be bad by Interruach · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Except you *want* a reliable 911 service, even if you switch to VOIP. All regulation isn't bad, you know.

  7. VoIP is the future by canolecaptain · · Score: 4, Interesting

    As someone who works in this industry, I thought I'd share some of the future of telecomm for those who aren't 'in the know'. All communication lines going to any endpoint (home, business, sensors, etc) are quickly moving to an IP based data network. Unfortunately, there are two problems that governments and current telephone companies face:
    1) Roughly 50% of their voice revenue stream comes from per minute connection charges, other carrier access charges, & regulation charges (govn't). These will evaporate when subscribers move to data driven VoIP (ie: you pay a flat fee for DSL or cable modem bandwidth now, and it can run all your voice calls to anywhere in the world). Eventually the PSTN connection part will no longer be necessary, so Vonage will disappear as we know it today, but it has finally woken up the telcos to what the future will bring.
    2) Pretty much the other half of their revenue stream comes from the 'premium' voice feature services (call waiting, text messaging, etc), all of which are quickly moving from the class 5 switch into the phones themselves (aka: free).

    What do you do when your primary revenue stream evaporates? Fight it in the courts or with govn't officials. Remember, govn'ts have been taking a nice chunk of that revenue for themselves as well.

    We will have to move to a bandwidth & quality of service (QoS) based payment style. A minimum bandwidth is given for a flat rate (which will include -all- voice), and extra bandwidth will be provided on demand at an agreed QoS. The higher the bandwidth & QoS, the higher the fee.

    Things to watch out for: VoIP everywhere, SIP phones/services, VoWLAN, current voice carriers moving their infrastructure to their IP networks, and govn't regulations dictating that comm lines (called data services & unregulated) become regulated for QoS.

    The companies that move to this model last will not survive. They aren't going to like this. :-)