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.'"

Comments

load of bull?

[t_allardyce]

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.

Re:load of bull?

[eln]

That's not a politically viable viewpoint, no matter how correct it is. There is no political pressure to reform the outdated phone system regulations, and classifying VoIP as "phone service" could open the door to classifying IP traffic in general as "phone service," thus opening up the political dynamite that is regulating the Internet.

Clearly, the safest political move is to simply classify VoIP as not phone-related, thereby sidestepping the dicey issues that are really at play here.

Re:load of bull?

[QuantumRiff]

Um, maybe they should not be classified as a phone system is because they are not a phone system. If I live in LA, but get a NY area code from Vonage, which states regulations apply, (or do both). What happens when I take my little vonage box to New Mexico to visit the family for a week, or on a long business trip? What if they use Vonage over a Dialup connection, do they get to pay double fees? The main reason for the laws that are there is becuase they telecoms agreed to them in order to get a government "licensed" monopoly. The goverment taxes the phone lines, (ie, the wires) not the calls. If they want, they should tax the internet connections, the cable modems, DSL lines, wireless hotsposts, whatever, but not the data.

Doesn't stop them...

[NoMoreNicksLeft]

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.

Good news...

[drinkypoo]

It's always nice to see law follow reality. The problem with regulating VoIP is the question of where you stop. It's only a short conceptual jump from regulating VoIP telephony to regulating Roger Wilco. Imagine if you had to allow a tap on any voice communications. The only way to do that is either mandate a standard back door, or to outlaw all encryption. The future of telephony is internet-connected phones and dialing by DDNS with very, very short leases. Cellphone providers will become internet and DDNS providers and all communications will be only as sniffable as the communication between the two phones allows.

Regulating VoIP can only make criminals out of those who desire privacy.

Regulating/taxing VoIP is a bad bad thing

[ValuJet]

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.

Time to change

[pnewhook]

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.