The FCC said its ruling, which stated that Vonage Holdings Corp and some cable company VoIP services are not subject to state telecommunications regulation, adds to the regulatory certainty the Commission began building earlier this year.
But the two democrats on the Commission limited their support of the move to concurring and expressed frustration that the FCC is addressing VoIP in a piecemeal fashion, and that it has yet to have an overall VoIP strategy.
The FCC said that Vonage’s DigitalVoice product cannot practically be separated into intrastate and interstate components, meaning it should not be subject to potentially 51 different sets of regulation from the states and District of Columbia.
DigitalVoice customers can use their phones from a broadband connection anywhere in the world, making it difficult to determine whether a call is local, interstate or international in nature, the FCC said.
Vonage, which had petitioned for such a ruling to override regulation attempts in Minnesota, welcomed the ruling. CEO Jeffrey Clinton said: The FCC has acknowledged the reality of the Internetwhich knows no state boundaries and no borders.
However, the Commission, as expected, stopped short of classifying DigitalVoice, an IP-to-PSTN service, as an information service under the law, which would have meant very light regulations applying.
In February, Pulver.com Inc’s Free World Dialup, a PC-to-PC VoIP service, was classified as an information service, but FCC chairman Michael Powell noted at the time that other types of VoIP would likely not be given the same treatment.
Powell said that freeing Vonage and its ilk from state regulations does not mean that the federal government will not impose its own set of regulations likely relating to things like emergency services and consumer protections.
To subject a global network to disparate local regulatory treatment by 51 different jurisdictions would be to destroy the very qualities that embody the technological marvel that is the internet, Powell said in a statement.
The two concurring commissioners, the minority democrats, observed that the ruling leaves the regulatory path unclear.
Commissioner Michael Copps said a clear and comprehensive framework for VoIP is needed. Instead the Commission moves bit-by-bit through individual company petitions, in effect checking off business plans as they walk through the door, he wrote.
