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 There is no political pressure to reform the outdated phone system regulations, and classifying VoIP as "phone service" could open the door to classifying IP traffic in general as "phone service," thus opening up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.

Re:Doesn't stop them...

[ReTay]

"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.

Wiretap

[darth_MALL]

(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.

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.

This could be a bad thing.

[jacobcaz]

I've run several ISPs over the years and one thing that always was the ISP owners "big stick" over the telcos (both ILEC and CLEC) was the PUC (public utilities council), usually coupled with a local utilities council or other regulatory group (like the IURC in Indiana).

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.

Re:This could be a bad thing.

[Mattintosh]

The thing is, they're not utilities. They're providers. Utilities maintain wires. The big guys have been protecting their status as both utility and provider for a long time, but VoIP will end that once and for all. SBC will become a line utility, and the ISP will become a VoIP provider. Whether SBC will sell the general public a VoIP service is irrelevant. Someone will, and there will be competition.

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.