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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.'"
(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.
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.
"and that they have no recourse through the utility commission should it have problems."
But that would be wrong.
I work for a large cable company and we are adding VOIP to our line up as fast as we can provide the guaranteed up times mandated by the government. Like 99.99 uptime and independent power supply and such. And yes if your ticked at the cable company you can call the P.U.C
The funny thing is that so many people hate the phone companies so bad they will snap up the service as fast as it is available. The growth has to be slow to keep the network growing in front of the wave of people who hate phone companies bad enough to do nearly anything to get away from them.
They did it to themselves. Bad customer service is legendary with phone companies.
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
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?
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.