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Federal Appeals Court Sides With VoIP Providers
gollum123 writes "AP reports that the Eighth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has upheld a ruling by a lower court that A Minnesota agency may not regulate calls through VoIP as it does calls through traditional phone lines. 'The Minnesota Public Utilities Commission had argued that VoIP companies were providing phone-like service and therefore should be regulated as phone companies are. But those businesses said they provide an information service rather than a telecommunications service. This follows the FCC saying that VOIP cannot be regulated using the same rules as traditional phone.'"
This is really just bullshit isnt it? VoIP _is_ like a phone, the only reason that it shouldnt be classed as a phone system is to get around stupid ancient phone laws that should be updated instead of worked around, its like saying that by-passing CD 'copy protection' isnt a violation of the DMCA because its for back-up purposes, - it quite clearly is a violation, the real point is that the DMCA is crap.
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From selling it as a telephone substitute. I'd be more than happy to let them out of this, if they were willing to point it out to each customer prioring to signing them up, that courts have ruled that it's not phone service, and that they have no recourse through the utility commission should it have problems.
(disclaimer: this is not my area of expertise)
How does this desicion affect the rights of law enforcement to 'tap' VOIP communications? Has it now placed them outside the scope of a traditional wiretap? Does a traditional wiretap now encompass data? If not, Having the FCC and two courts backing this would make it pretty difficult for the feds to work around I think.
When I call my family using VoIP, they can't tell the difference.Who would have thought making calls across the atlantic would be much cheaper than calling someone across town on a payphone?
I don't care what they decide to call it. I'm just glad it's dirt cheap.
Regulating VoIP can only make criminals out of those who desire privacy.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Every time we were jerked around by our ILEC or CLEC providers, we could give the PUC and IURC a call and the problems would usually be solved post haste. A call to our account rep suggesting we would report an incindnet to the PUC would bring swift service indeed.
See, we alone couldn't do anything to SBC/Ameritech or Time Warner Telecommunications (or our other CLECs), but the PUC and IURC could "get their regulatin' on" and slap them around with big fines for not providing the promised service, breaking rate tarriffs, etc.
Sure, you can much more easily choose a different VoIP provider than you can a POTS provider, but how long before market consolidation leaves only one or two real VoIP choices? What happens when they start to pull similar BS that the ILECs and CLECs do but aren't regulated by the FCC?
I'm not generally in favor of governmental regulation, but sometimes a little oversight isn't a bad thing. If they want to act like utilities, let them be treated like utilities since we know the markets will converge and consolidate anyway towards only 1 or 2 big national players.
Does anyone know what sort of regulations were in question?
Right now, it seems that only the FCC has the authority to regulate. I just hope that when there is an emergency I will be able to get connected to a dispacher quickly.
Why does every government agency seek to enlarge it's power by regulating new things? What purpose would this have? Why can't they leave these services in the private sector? Somebody explain this to me, because I really don't get it.
People seem to love modding me down for pointing out their stupidity and arrogance...
Can somebody tell me if this is good or bad? Am not very well versed in VOIP stuff..
By claiming Ebay isn't an auctionsite, but an online marketplace, they circumvent the thousands of laws across the world regarding how auctions take place.
Same goes for paypal, they get to dodge all the laws that regulate banks because they don't claim to be a bank, but an online transaction site or something.
I'm just thankful the government hasn't been able to tax the internet yet.
God spoke to me.
I've heard many people for an against VoIP regulation, most people make valid points with it. My personal opinion is leave it unregulated and unencumbered by law.
My only issue is that of 911 calls. Like one poster mentioned about location (sorry, Quantumriff but it's a good one) , if I lived in LA but had a New York area code then visited relatives in New Mexico, how would the 911 issue be fixed?
They don't have to provide this service at all (to the best of my knowledge) but if they had to/or are willing here's what I suggest.
Make it based on IP/range etc. When you plug in and log-on, have a dialog setup for voluntary or manditory address insertion before you can use the phone. Shouldn't take too long right? That way your info can be transmitted via the VoIP service to the 911 center and have the correct information.
Once you plugged in again to the system, you can opt to have that information perminantly deleted or kept in your account for future if it's a frequented place of yours.
Does that sound viable? Opinions please!
-zoloto
What happens when there is no POTS anymore, and all calls are VoIP?
This suggests that they will be no regulation at all for "phone" service at all, because all calls will be over IP.
VoIP is just data packets being sent back and forth on the internet. There is no real difference between a VoIP packet and one of your favorite website. Allowing the government to apply regulations to a specific kind of traffic is the start of a VERY VERY nasty slope. The government should not be able to apply taxes to VoIP because it is just data being sent over the internet.
jullie zijn allemaal een stelletje vieze homo's sterf ff allemaal aan nerd zijn,geen enkele van jullie zal ooit een wijf neuken. ik hoop dat jullie allemaal lekker gaan rukken, de mazzel
een aardig persoon
wouter
taxes are all mostly bull shit anyway.
Is that a fact? Got any examples? Your entire post talks about taxes, when what you are describing are levies.
The tax that everyone paid into, which was supposed to go to support schools and community access to the Internet, has never been paid out.
Sorry, what?
Taxes *DON'T* get "paid out" - if what you are describing is truly a tax, then it goes to the government, period. It doesn't get "paid out", it becomes part of general revenue.
More importantly, it's not a required tax at all
No, more importantly, it's not a *TAX* at all.
And from your description it's not even a levy.
Perhaps you should at *least* get your terminology straight before you start whining about something. All you're doing is showing everybody how stupid you are.
So I'm in LA and I have an internet connection with a tunnel to an ISP in Nebraska. As far as my IP address, I'm in Nebraska. How are you going to verify that?
Maditory address insertion is absurd at best. Some insane scheme of madatory GPS would be more realistic but probably just as easy to spoof/bypass.
How do cell phones do 911? I guess they can at least tell what tower the device is connected with.
The man who trades freedom for security does not deserve nor will he ever receive either. - Benjamin Franklin
It's time we change the way we think about these utilities and start removing some of these outdated regulations.
Currently (here in Canada at least) I can get telephone, cellphone and high speed internet from my cable television supplier, or I can get cellphone, television and high speed internet from my telephone company, or I can even get most of the above through a number of independent smaller companies, usually through a wireless antenna or satellite dish.
With all of these options on equivalent services, these regulations and their outdated definitions no longer make sense.
Tesla was a genius. Edison however was a overrated hack who liked to torture puppies.
"Um, maybe they should not be classified as a phone system is because they are not a phone system. "
Walks like a duck. Talks like a duck, but oh no. For Slashdot purposes. It's not a duck.
Also this classification may mean that VoIP will not enjoy some of the same legal protections that phone enjoys. e.g. illegal wiretapping.
The telephone tax was originally started as a tax to be used to pay for the Spanish American War. Telephones were selected then because they were a luxury item. Why can't we find a luxury item today to tax instead of my VOIP service ?
There are a few websites out there like this one http://riseup.net/nacc/telephone.htm that tell you how to avoid paying landline telephone tax. If they do decide to tax VOIP, just do the same thing. If someone comes back and says my VOIP tax money is needed to fight our current war, then just remind them about the history of the telephone tax and suggest some luxury items that we can tax today ( fur coats, Hummer, super diamond ring, etc )
"My guess is never. The VoIP market doesn't show any sign of being a natural monopoly the way the telephone market is. "
Or the broadband market.
"Why does every government agency seek to enlarge it's power by regulating new things?"
Because of that inevitable quality known as "progress". The airplane was "new" at one time. The car was "new" at one time. Nuclear plants were "new" at one time. Why do you expect progress to be inevitable, while the legislative and legal system to be stagnent?
"It's simple. The more things they regulate, the more power they have, the more people they need and the bigger their budgets get."
The cynics answer, but when applied to reality, it comes lacking. By the cynics answer there would be no safety regulations for anything, from cars to airplanes.
There would be no regulations of food and medical equipment. Any Tom, Dick, and Harry could get a license. You may feel that regulations are burdensome, and represent a power grab. But ask yourself just what kind of world you're really asking for.
Whichout regulation, what kind of defense does The Quality Paperback Club in Mechanicsburg, PA have when enough people report them for harrasement?
They seem to be calling my house 3-4 times a day every single day, sometimes leaving a messege, other times not. They start their prerecorded messege before my machine is even done with it's announcement. It's a machine calling, and leaving a messege.
You may be asking why a paperback book club would be making automated calls to me, well, they're not! It's a bill collector using a calling service from out of the county (accent sounds like maybe India) Just yesterday, the collection agency called me from their own offices, left a message, then withing 5 seconds their calling service called.
They are using VOIP service into the US to make calls without having to pay long distance charges, and faking their number on caller ID
I called once on this practise, and was told that as far the the FCC is concerned, there's nothing they can do. I have to put up with the calls, and the poor owner of the book club has to fight with complaints from uninformed targets of this harrasement.
I feel that if it's a service, and device used to make calls to a standard telephone system, then they should be under the same rules and regulations as anyone else that uses the telephone service.
They've found a loophole, and are abusing it to their full advantage. How long do we have to put up with this?
What good are the phone lines nowadays? I'd rather have wireless internet.
Let's look at current pricing structures:
rip of the customer pricing
long distance - charged per call based on distance and time (could be $$/min!!)
cellular phone - charged per call based on estimated number of minutes and plan (could be $$$/min or >$200/mo)
cellular data plans - very few are all-you-can-eat - most cost about $40/month or could be much more for essentially transfers of a "few" megabytes of data
ALL-YOU-CAN-EAT
Dial up internet (Digital -> analog -> digital) = all-you-can eat for about $20/month
universal phone service for local calls - (analog --> analog) - local only calling for about $15/month all-you-can eat (or whatever)
Cable modem/DSL - (digital-->digital) - all-you-can eat for about $50/month
wireless access - (not many subscription wireless plans yet with any sort of wide range, but they're effective all-you-can eat, too)
... and can anyone explain to me why cellular data services remain so costly? There ought to be some law..
Does anyone else see that cell phones could eventually be completely replaced with Wireless and VoIP? In that world, we could all pay flat rates to talk with people all around the world.
Don't most phone companies already use VoIP already? They just don't want to lose their cash cow!
This is how Vonage Handles 911 Dialing. Basically, you have to activate it by telling them your phisical address. Once you do, 911 calls are directed to a Public Safety Answering Point (PSAP) in your area -- when I tested it, they answered "911 Emergency Services" and knew exactly where I was.
This seems like a reasonable way to do things for people like myself who don't relocate with my VoIP box. However, the question of people who do relocate frequently is a good thing to consider. I believe (although I'm not sure) that if I move to a different area with my Vonage box, the 911 service is automatically deactivated and I must re-enable it again.
Amateur Radio
(and the Colt, too, of course.)
...not that I'm a pirate.. Hell I've never even fired a cannon. - oldwolf13
Keeping the regulation of VOIP seperate from traditional phone services is just going to open the door to regulate it differently.. More severely. Things that have not been tolerated on phones thus far will probably be thrusted on VOIP due to the fact that it is still hardly widely used.
--- "End Of Line" - MCP
If it's not regulated as a phone, then no protections regarding phone solicitation apply. Think about it: spam heaven.
Using VoIP you can encrypt your call on the fly, route that shit through some proxy servers and there "ain't" no tappin' baby. -Nazz
Hey, thanks for that link. I missed it (sometimes I miss a barn in front of me) for some reason. The E911 service makes sense for another responder to my question.
Thought manditory/almost manditory information insertion isn't absurd, just annoyance at best if you have no other way to dial 911.
1. Phones can work without power, as long as the switch is alive.
2. A normal phone can be a simple piece of electronics not subject to computer failure modes.
3. Phone service is circuit switched and reliable. VoIP is packet switched, and thus has much less reliability.
4. 911 doesn't work well over VoIP.
5. Even if it did, problems 1-3 would make it something you can't rely on.
6. People should always have a land line for emergencies. If an emergency occurs and they onle have a VoIP and/or cell and they might suffer tragedy.
Loss of phone service is expected to endanger life in many cases. It needs to be regulated.
Loss of VoIP should not be expected to do so, except if people choose to rely on it and not have a landline.
Just because it CAN be done, doesn't mean it should!
I currently have nothing but VoIP and cell service in my home, and had to recently dial 911, from my VoIP phone, to help my daughter. Since I registered my address with the VoIP company, the EMT's got to my house in 10 mins.
Now the roaming VoIP boxes would be a lot more complicated, but if you register it when you get it, they can find you quickly.
Wait, is it a club or a bat?
Cordless phones can not work without power, whether the switch is alive or dead makes no difference.
3. Phone service is circuit switched and reliable. VoIP is packet switched, and thus has much less reliability.
Almost all phone service is packet switched at the central office. I haven't noticed a difference in reliability. Have you?
4. 911 doesn't work well over VoIP.
What does this have to do with VOIP not being a phone?
5. Even if it did, problems 1-3 would make it something you can't rely on.
Problems 1 and 3 apply to VOIP and standard phone service thereforce both VOIP and standard phone service is something you can't rely on.
6. People should always have a land line for emergencies. If an emergency occurs and they onle have a VoIP and/or cell and they might suffer tragedy.
If an emergency occurs and they only have a land line tragedy might happen. So what?
"A good answer, in general, but it misses my point. I was trying to explain why every agency tries to expand its own mandate."
[The question]
Why does every government agency seek to enlarge it's power by regulating new things?
[Your answer]
It's simple. The more things they regulate, the more power they have, the more people they need and the bigger their budgets get.
Your answer puts "power and money" as the "causes", instead of the "effects" of government agencies adapting to their environment. So no, I got your point, but was showing you that there's more than one interpretation, that'll fit the question.
To the AC below: Bite me.
On the other hand, if you do owe the money then suck it up and write a check. :-)
Dewey, what part of this looks like authorities should be involved?
That's exactly my point... Traceroute tells you nothing because IP addresses can be routed. They aren't physically attached to anything. You could tunnel over a tunnel over a tunnel and the IP address you're using for VoIP could be anywhere.
The man who trades freedom for security does not deserve nor will he ever receive either. - Benjamin Franklin
Hey...
The way I look at the issue is thus:
(Almost) Everyone who has Windows, has Netmeeting. M$ gave it away for free.
If you run open source, there's OpenH323.
If you can't make this work, I probably don't want to talk to you anyways. Sure cuts down on the telemarketers!
______________________________
Paranoia is a state of mine...
You're not paranoid if they really ARE out to get you...
Once upon a time it was a luxury to have electricity, running water, gas, telephone, cable etcetra in your house...
VoIP is not going away. The huge bucks spent on the Internet and its infrastructure is about to pay off for the big guys that laid down the green.
I'm worried that people will look at it as a POTS phone and that it will be infallible. -- We've all said "OMG my DNS server is down!!! My Internet isn't working anymore! The Internet sucks!"...soon we will replace the word Internet with something like "info service" or "feed" or whatever. Then how do we call to report the problem? It will take a few deaths/mishaps for laws to be put in place that will require 99.99% uptime.
Soon (15-20years), we will have not one shielded, and a few unshielded copper wires entering our houses, but a single fibre-optic thread. All of our information will breed through it...AND we will rely WAY more heavily on it for pretty much every meta-physical service we require.
Welcome...to the -real- information age.
Every house will have a block of IPv6 address assigned to it by, yes, the local PUC...and YES, it will be as much a necessity as hydro, water, gas, and phone service is. The thing is: relying on an infrastructure that can go down due to a new Mellisa virus is VERY bad. Bandwidth throttling using QoS just may be a good thing.
We will need fault tolerant/redundant entry and exit points for this to be a 99.9% reliable technology.
Regulation of IP and UDP on the Net = BAD!
Regulation of Info Services = BAD!
Regulation of VOIP devices = Good?
Think of this:
Johnny: "Hey, what's your address?"
Jane: "61.24.3....oh, you mean my physical address! I thought you were hitting on me."
-or-
Jane: "Hey, what's your VoIP?"
Johnny: "It's l33tH4X0r.TelCoVoIP.com"
And will our assigned IP addresses be more personal/private than our physical house addresses?
Inject.