FCC To Hold First VoIP Hearings; Rules in 2004

securitas writes "The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) will hold its first hearings on Internet telephony and VoIP regulation on Dec. 1 and plans to regulate VoIP by late 2004. A public comment period will follow the Dec. 1 meeting. Some say that it is overly ambitious to regulate VoIP by 2004, especially since FCC Commissioner Michael Powell does not have a strong reputation for clarifying complex issues - instead he has a reputation for confounding them. More at Internet.com and InternetWeek . FCC press release (PDF1|DOC1) and attached letter (PDF2|DOC2) to VoIP proponent Senator Ron Wyden, who sits on the Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee."

Comments

Why

[Emperor Cezar]

Why is it the FCCs job to regulate a private internet. I can understand open airwaves that everyone controls, but the internet? I pay a private entity to connect to the internet, not the US government.

The reason for the FCC to regulate VoIP is that AT&T and friends have paid off some congressman so they won't lose thier market.

People, please vote Libertarian before we lose all of our freedoms.

Re:Why

[isdnip]

The FCC has no intention, I am quite sure, of regulating private VoIP, or any computer-to-computer applications. They're really, really, not interested in going there. (I do this stuff for a living. I'm not a lawyer, but I do regulatory work, and often write formal Comments on FCC proceedings. So I stay on top of this sort of thing.) Theoretically, they do have a lot of authority that they do not exercise. But for the past 25 years or so, their direction has been to exercise authority to prevent monopolies from impeding progress. The Internet itself only exists, for instance, because the FCC ordered AT&T, in the 1970s, to remove a restriction on "sharing and resale" of leased line circuits.

The FCC is however interested in a number of very sticky questions that relate to VoIP. The telephone network itself is subject to fairly strict regulation, particularly the amount of money that each carrier is allowed to charge the other carriers on a given call. So when somebody in Virginia calls somebody in California over Qwest's network, how much does VZ in VA get from Q, how much does SBC in CA get from Q? Those are covered by detailed tariffs.

A local leg of an interstate call is not treated the same as a local call. The current regulatory system is based on a system of classification, and that system is obsolete. VoIP increases the pressure on it.

VoIP threatens that because it's so easy to sneak around the usual processes. The current FCC not-quite-rule (an April 1999 "Report to Congress", which is an unofficial policy statement) says that "phone to phone" VoIP calls are just plain calls, subject to the same payments as other calls. PC-to-phone calls, however, are undefined. And there are all sorts of variations. The big phone companies know it, and want to use their influence to make things go their own way. Small, rural local phone companies actually have the most to lose, because they get a much bigger share of their revenue from long distance settlements. Rural state regulators and legislators are very protective of these companies.

Coincidence?

[Phattypants]

Is it a coincidence that the FCC is now deciding to regulate VoIP in the face of IBM plans to migrate most of its phone systems by 2008?

The end user

[sploxx]

I wonder what that means for the end user.
It seems clear to me that they want to regulate VoIP, because it's the same application, only the transmission medium changed.

BUT... what does that mean to the consumer(*)? Am I allowed to run my VoIP applications or are they willing to control that also (like in panama, see
http://yro.slashdot.org/yro/02/11/04/0252201. shtml ?tid=95 ).

This can get just another privacy issue. Because the enforcement of thus regulations needs control of the traffic.

Are the traditional phone companies like AT&T losing? I don't think so. They are also providing internet services. They change become more an more
ISPs. They *are* ISPs. There has always been competition. Now the internet is stirring up the market a bit. So where is their problem?

Sometimes it seems that artificial problems are built up to get the public in favour of internet control (and the public is certainly there, now). Maybe not the population, but the ones that should decide for us. Maybe it's well-crafted lobbying.

(*) - Starting to hate that word. I am not only a "consumer".

VoIP regulation should not be allowed

[eyefish]

VoIP is nothing more than an attempt by the Telcos to try to hold on to a market that is naturally sliping out of their hands.

When one thinks about it, regulating VoIP is as stupid as trying to regulate chat programs; both are simply sending packets across and both run on off-the-shelf open-standards hardware and software.

I only wish lawmakers (who are _supposed_ to represent the public) notice this and realize that consumers should not be scammed like this.

VOIP Question

[Anonymous Coward]

This may be a stupid question, but how exactly can the FCC or anyone regulate VOIP calls? How can they detect if I'm using a VOIP application over my internet connection to communicate using voice, rather than via a text e-mail?

I don't doubt that if there was enough money and motivation it would be possible to detect and block VOIP packets on the public internet.

It just seems that doing so what would require sniffers at all ISPs or somewhere to analyze, detect and block VOIP information. It would seem that this kind of effort would ruin the internet.

Then again, there's lot I don't know and I might be missing something obvious ...

Color me cynical

[Agar]

Somehow I doubt that the FCC will "get it" and create a regulatory framework that makes any sense.

However, there are a few good reasons for regulations. Phone service is considered a "lifeline" service. Without it, people can die ("help! I've fallen and I can't get up!"). That's why there are surcharges to support rural phone systems and keep the price down, as well as mandatory 9-1-1 regulations.

Needless to say, taxing VOIP to pay for rural phones doesn't make a lot of sense today, particularly since the rural infrastructure is already built out.

However, most VOIP services don't support 9-1-1 calling, which can be a huge problem in an emergency situation. Reliability is dependent on the underlying ISP, which can be an issue.

The problem is that any regulatory framework needs to balance the needs of the industry to *benefit* the consumer. Granted those benefits may involve a trade-off (pay an extra $10 on the VOIP hardware to support a build-out of 9-1-1 bridges), but the benefit (emergency access) is supposed to be greater than the cost.

Unfortunately, I think most in the government forget that they work for us, and are there to look out for our interests. When the balance is off (more cost than consumer benefit), you get an overly regulated, stifled industry that doesn't provide adequate (or value-added) service to the clients that are paying for the service. More often, the entrenched businesses simply get more entrenched.

I fear that this is the political environment into which the VOIP will descend. There will be more focus on the regulation and less on the value that the regulations will bring to the consumer.

Do you really think the FCC will cede power?

[stox]

Personally, I think everyone is mis-reading this. It has nothing to do with the ILEC's and everything to do with the FCC maintaining its power base.

Most of the big players in Telecom have announced intent to carry the majority of their traffic, in the near future, over IP. No way the FCC is going to let the single biggest piece of its influence walk away.

VoIP

[Molina the Bofh]

Some years ago I tested VoIP and it simply sucked. It needed special hardware, headset, and was just plain annoying. But last week I tested Cisco's ATA 186, that has allows a regular phone to be connected to the network. I was astonished with the voice clarity. I called from Brazil to a branch we have in the US, and the quality was outstanding. No noticeable delay, nor echo. Of course there must be a delay (at least 87 ms, as a ping test averages 175 ms), but it's too low to notice in a regular conversation, and far smaller than in a regular international phone call.

Considering the company I work for spends about $3000/mo in int'l phone calls alone, after I showed it was cheaper and better, I was authorized to research and install it between our offices.

It's easy to connect 2 offices, but I wanted to do a little more... To allow our roaming users, from a cellular or regular phone, to call the local office and be able to reach a dial-out on the remote office, so the only chargeable phone calls would be local area ones.

Problem is: I have no idea of what equipment I should buy for this task. It'd be nice if the caller would be asked a pin#, and we'd be able to print a report of the calls later. The number of lines will be small, about 3 or 4. The equipment must be available in the US. Any tips ?

Not a good direction

[not_bio]

What bothers me about this is that it could make the internet open to being much much more restricted. Would video games that have built in VOIP now have to be able to dial a net 911? "That Fsking haxor is using a bot!!! arrest that 1337ass biatch!!" Would open source VOIP projects be canceled because they would have to register and pay a fee (though in net terms, that generally means it gets packed up and distributed from another part of the world so has minimized effect)? Same with free for private use ones like ventrilo. Having non-technically minded partisan people attempt to dictate technology is at best commical, and at worst scary. Of course the arguments about terrorism, drug dealing, and protecting children are going to be pushed. VOIP is way too general of a term to be considered as one technology. I doubt it will come to the point where someone who runs an encrypted voice server to talk to others across the world will have their doors knocked in by the fbi, but it could be forseable that they will get a huge bill from the FCC in their mail. Powell has so far been on of the most unconsumer friendly FCC leaders ever. His views on media consolodation and hdtv broadcasts were at a minimum shortsighted for the former and premature for the latter issue. The threat of consumers talking on the phone for way less than he thinks they should be paying is great. On the other hand, big businesses stand a ton to gain by unrestricted VOIP too. I do think there are some issues that should be addressed such as standards and spam calls. I do not think the FCC is the right body to be dealing with these issues. Probably the biggst threat to widespread adaptation of VOIP as a viable land line replacement is going to be the spam. It costs a lot of money to call someone on the phone say in the UK or USA from Nigeria and tell them to buy viagra or vicodin, not so the case with email and thus VOIP. Even if there was a fee for service model adopted, unlike land lines where if one wants to hack them they have to usually climb up a poll or do something involving wire cutters, with VOIP, the infrastructure is parked right on your computer. Hacking and spoofing will be issues too.

great example.

[twitter]

How would it be if you wanted to IM or VOIP your doctor and you are a Yahoo user and the doc is a AIM user??

Wow, that one is easy, People can't rely on IM because US ISPs suck and that is a direct result of recent US regulatory effort. Broadband penetration is low and run by monopoly service providers who offer high prices and idiotic restrictions such as "no servers". Most people still suffer dial up, which is even less practical for IM. If the US had better ISP:

1. IM would be possible.
2. People would quickly ditch junk software and use things that worked with everyone. Computers that don't run 24/7 would no longer be acceptable and M$ would die.
3. Phones would quickly dissapear as people migrated all of their communications needs to machines with brains, voice, pictures and the ability to access them anywhere. SSH a laptop and a hook up are all you need to get all of your stuff anywhere. This is so much better than the phone system which is expensive, non portable, mindless without optional equipment that does not do very well and has no real storage capacity.

My non regulated GNU/Linux system does a great job of talking to any BSD, Mac, Unix or Windoze system without the first governemnt regulation. What was it that government regs gave you? Oh yeah, a 10 digit number you have to remember. Sure, like that never happens outside regulation - TCP/IP - caugh.