FCC Forum Divided on Future VoIP Regulation

ElCheapo writes "As the great philosopher Eminem once said, 'The FCC won't let [VoIP] be, or let [VoIP] be free.' In Washington today, the FCC held a public forum 'to gather information concerning advancements, innovations, and regulatory issues related to VoIP services.' Slashdot has seen numerous stories on VoIP regulation recently, but Tom Evslin, CEO of ITXC, brought up another point: If VoIP is over-regulated, it will not go away, it will just move to other countries and reach the point where regulation can no longer be enforced. With or without VoIP regulation, will a global P2P (PSTN-connected) voice network emerge? Will it start out as hobbyists setting up Asterisk Open Source PBX boxes connected to their home POTS line? Will some form of ENUM allow least cost routing to boxes sitting in basements and garages around the world? If an ITSP in Europe can setup an Asterisk box with PSTN access and start offering US phone numbers and vice-versa, will global number plans become obsolete? What effect will the ridiculously low barrier to entry for VoIP have on telecommunications?"

How quaint.

[Anonymous Coward]

The FCC has already made up it's mind: it will hand over the business to the telco conglomerates. The little man has no say in this, these "public meetings" are all a charade.

What will emerge

[mindstrm]

is a global voip network, and pots will become largely irrelevant in connected areas.

The need for pots to internet gateways is what holds us up now.. think of how things owrk once most people are all using voip.. suddenly, it's all software.. adn hooking people together for voice stuff no longer needs ANY kind of centralizing....

it won't be regulated, as ultimately, it can't be.

It has already started

[srboneidle]

I don't really understand how any regulation on VOIP would work. Living in England, I speak to my family in Spain on a daily basis using VOIP. At the moment I sit down if front of a computer and use microphone/speakers. How long will it be until someone comes up with a telephone type device which you plug into your DSL modem?

The big question for me

[Anonymous Coward]

How long until we start seeing the P2P-based net phone networks able to connect to POTS?

All it would take is one 10-10-whatever-like pay service where you call a node on the P2P network, then enter a real-life phone number, which they connect you to..

Re:How quaint.

[iamplupp]

cited from opening remarks by FCC chairman M K Powell: "no regulator, either federal or state, should thread into this area without an absolutely compelling justification for doing so"

Why should IP make telephone calls free?

[EmbeddedJanitor]

I've said this before... when phone moved from copper to fibre, the regulations didn't change so why expect them to change when the underlying medium is IP? I'm not saying the regulation is a GoodThing, but surely any arguments that say that a change to IP as a medium is just plain illogical.

Sure, this could drive some VoIp offshore, but what they're likely controlling is the call itself. If the call originates or terminates in the USofA, then the call falls under FCC control and they will want their slice.

Already paid for

[BWJones]

What this comes down to is companies suddenly realizing they are set to lose market share. We are rather successfully using iChat AV to remotely collaborate from N. America to New Zealand, but here is the deal. We are already paying for access to the Internet out of our grant indirect costs to the university. So are others that are paying to have access to the Internet from their homes and businesses. If the major phone companies have not been on the ball enough to see this one coming, perhaps they need new boards of directors or CEO's as voice over IP has not been an overnight phenomenon. Furthermore, the government should not be stepping in to attempt to rescue companies that have not been smart enough to adequately compete. Right? Is this what market consolidation and deregulation done for us?

Moeny money money

[Anonymous Coward]

The only thing holding VOIP back is the FCC deciding who gets money from it. I mean, the only reason the US isn't using solar power exclusively is because nobody's found out how to run a sunbeam through a meter, right?

The telcos are scared that this will make them obsolete, so they HAVE to find a way to make a buck off this.

Let the market rule

[mikeymckay]

Allow VOIP to be unregulated (you can't really stop this anyway). If it causes the phone companies to start losing money then they raise prices to compensate, and our home phone lines cost more.

I don't know where most of the revenue stream for telcos comes from, but if it is from long distance phone calls - then they need a new business plan. Those days are over. If they are spending too much money to keep the internet working then they need to raise prices on access to the internet lines and the price will rise at our ISPs.

I think the real problem is the stupid white men are seeing their business replaced by better technology and they are crying to Sugar Daddy Bush to help them out. New technology almost always means business die.

RIP phone companies.

Regulators irrelevant

[nv5]

Once you have any data stream over IP, it is pretty difficult to regulate, since it can be disguised on varying port numbers, encryption (which is probably a good idea anyway) and other techniques. Regulation tends to work on the big conglomerates, since they operate so much in public. A homespun underground cottage industry movement is very difficult to control (see P2P). Therefore I find the discussions about regulating VoIP rather irrelevant.

Re:How quaint.

[NewWaveNet]

The FCC has already made up it's mind: it will hand over the business to the telco conglomerates.

I think you're missing the point. Who cares if the FCC decides to regulate things when the companies offering these services are beyond their jurisdiction.

Re:Why should IP make telephone calls free?

[interiot]

why expect them to change when the underlying medium is IP?

Okay, charge for the medium in general then (IP, cable, DSL, etc...), not particular applications running on top of it (irc, email, voip). Applications are far too fluid, innovative, and morphable/hidable (especialy for geeks like us) for the government to define exactly what should be charged for and what shouldn't. (though you could say that about radio waves too, *grumble*). I don't want an intrusive infrastructure hard-wired into my computer or on the ISP's side that analyzes every packet and charges differently for each one.

The progression is inevitable

[ratpick]

We've gone from a nation of individualists to a nation of selfish individuals, all crying "Me! Me! Me!" to a government composed primarily of short-sighted, ignorant persons concerned only with placating the short-sighted, ignorant masses.

Our government has, therefore, become adept at siphoning money from us all in a manner that is least likely to attract negative attention (think payroll taxes). We all know the real purpose of VoIP "regulation" is to protect an outdated telecom business model and the tax revenue it generates, but until we are all willing to make some sacrifices, the downward spiral will continue.

Re:Why should IP make telephone calls free?

[ad0gg]

VOIP is that just that Voice over IP, be it Sip or H323 or any thing else. So now I should pay money because I play Counterstrike and use voice enabled feature to talk to my teammates? Or Xbox live users? Or using video conferencing over IM? Or any of the web conferencing products? Better yet, why should I be double taxed. I already pay taxes on my telephone line, now you want me to be double taxed because I'm using VOIP too? VOIP is only part of the future, SIP which can specify many different types of communication will be the future. People keep thinking our phones are going to be used for voice only, take a look at cell phones. Its going to be text messages(sms), video conferencing, picture messageing(mms) and much more. I guess we could kill it now by over regulating it since change is bad.

Re:Why should IP make telephone calls free?

[alexborges]

when phone moved from copper to fibre, the regulations didn't change so why expect them to change when the underlying medium is IP?

because i can afford for 30 bucks a month an adsl line that gives me IP to do voice over it, but i didnt have the same chance with fiber.

Massification is a function of price. This has to change the regulations or you face a monopoly like i do in my country, one that will be made innefective because they wont be able to stop the voip revolution even if they want to. It will just take more time than if we didnt have a monopoly.

If you guys have the chance to do it right from the begining, do so.

Re:Other quoes by your "great philosopher"

[Anonymous Coward]

Um, I don't think many officially great philosophers would do much better by that standard. You probably don't want to go looking to the Greeks and Romans for racial tolerance, a clean mouth, or respect for the opposite sex... Just a thought.

Re:VOIP won't drastically affect POTS

[radish]

Consider what you need to do in order to get an analogue voice line: you call the phone company, answer a few questions, wait a short period of time (usually a few hours), and plug in the phone. Bang, you have a phone number and can call your mom. Ludicrously simple, and you don't need a child of five to do this.


I recently had to do this (Verizon in NYC). It went more like...

Call the phone company. Get list of required documentation. Fax copies of documentation to phone company. Wait until next day. Call back. Answer lots of questions, get confused over the 19 gazillion local/local-toll/regional/long distance/international packages. Be glad prior research was done on the phone company's webpage. Wait _4_days_ for some engineer to flip a switch somewhere. Go buy phone handset. Plug in 4 days later - no dice. Call phone company again. Schedule engineer appointment for 2 days later. Get home to find note from engineer claiming all wiring in (2 year old) apartment needs replacing at a cost of $200. Find helpful person in building who knows what they are doing and have them fix dodgy phone jack which was damaged by decorators. Success! Basic phone service for $35 a month and only have to wait 8 days to get it working.

As soon as they'll accept my credit I'm going with Vonage. Order service, wait for delivery of box. Plug one cable into router, one into power supply. Attach phone handset. Configure options on webpage. Joy :)

Consider how regulation is good

[RebornData]

I listened to some of the FCC discussion on CSPAN, and with all the mindless "let VOIP be free" perspectives being spouted here, let me raise a few of the more valid concerns I heard with letting VOIP go completely unregulated (and forecasting a dramatic drop in POTS usage as broadband spreads and people use it for phone):

1. Emergency use:
VOIP will not have the level of reliability of POTS, especially during natural disasters and other emergencies. In theory an IP network can be made just as reliable, but the simple issue of powering the phones is a big issue... the phone system generally has been significantly more reliable than the power system. With a VOIP phone, you're dead if you lose power. Traditional phones keep going.

This may seem like a small issue, but an example cited during the hearing was a major weather-related power outage in California, where the utility determined after the fact that customers were less annoyed by the fact that the power was off than the fact that the phone system at the power company was not equipped to give them good repair status information. People count on the phone system, and it needs to be there, especially for 911 emergency use.

2. Funding and effectiveness of 911
The 911 system is funded by POTS and cellular surcharges. Even a 25% drop in POTS usage due to VOIP would be disasterous from a funding perspective. And remember that when you call 911 from a landline (and in more and more areas, cellular), they know where you are. VOIP is extremely far away from having any sort of location capability.

3. Funding of Universal Access
Everyone in the country has access to phone service, no matter how rural / remote they are. This has been a tremendously important program, but would have funding problems similar to 911 if a big chunk of POTS goes away.

Anyway, my point is that despite how "retro" POTS is technically, it has significant merits that VOIP currently does not provide. I'm not suggesting that any of the problems described above are unsolveable for VOIP, but I think it's awfully unlikely that "market forces" will magically provide the answers. There needs to be some regulation in order that the good in POTS is preserved going forward.

Re:Just The Facts

[Dhalka226]

Sigh. I'm so sick of this it's not even funny.

Why the hell is it that people continually feel the need to run down the submiters, the editors and everybody else here who is working for you to provide you a free service that, by your being here, I assume you find both enjoyable and informative?

Don't like their writing? Submit your own stories. Stop coming. Whatever. Just quit bitching already. It's not funny, it's not insightful, it's not on topic and it is of no value.

Regulation != Bad

[i_r_sensitive]

Folks keep hammering on the evils of regulation, this is an absolute fallacy and needs to squashed now.

First of all, what about the regulations which mandated performance expectatiuons. Phone service has traditionally been viewed as an essential service, some of these regulations stipulate uptimes for phone networks, etc. etc. The net effect of these has been that the consumer expects the phone to work, reliably, every time. VoIP providers (other than the big telecomms players) by and large will not be able to meet this expectation, or rather will be at the mercy of infrastructure they don't control, and organizations they have no binding agreements with.

Some of these regulations have also made it unlawful for private individuals to tap each others phones. (This being a right reserved to the government, who supposes they own the electrons involved anyways...) Without the private networks owned by the telcos, and the regulatory controls placed on those networks, wiretapping becomes a skill that the current generation of script kiddies can master in three hours. It's all data folks, it can be diverted, copied, folded, mutilated, spindled just like form data. Sure it can be encrypted, but there is some fairly significant overhead involved, without crypto hardware, I think you would notice degraded conversation quality.

Besides, do we really want to offer the marketing organizations a way to converge SPAM and telemarketing?

Re:Consider how regulation is good

[Anonymous Coward]

And where did people get the idea that we're all entitled to equal services? Or entitled to emergency services? If you can afford it, buy it. If you can't, oh well. It is not the place of government to spread the wealth around or to help you in an emergency. Its only justifiable purpose is to protect you from people who attempt to violate your right to life, liberty, or the PURSUIT of happiness.

Re:How quaint.

[Greger47]

> After a while, I wouldn't see the need for a PSTN, anymore.

Yes, but you still need cables to each home transporting that internet traffic.

And it's the cables that are the natural monopoly, not the fact that they used to be used for phonecalls.

So while PSTN might be dying, sooner or later broadband internet connections will end up regulated for the same reasons as PSTN was.

/greger

Re:Regulators irrelevant

[ScooterBill]

The other interesting effect of this is that wiretapping will become obsolete since encryption of phone calls will be trivial to implement in software.

Listen closely...you can hear the FBI, CIA, etc., shaking in their boots over this possibility. I can't imagine that they'll just let it happen without a fight.

M