: FCC: 'Pure' VoIP not a phone service

[Dave Farber <dave () farber net>]

-----Original Message-----
From: Claudio Gutierrez <cgutierrez () improvement cl>
Date: Thu, 12 Feb 2004 17:38:48 
To:Dave Farber <dave () farber net>
Subject: FCC: 'Pure' VoIP not a phone service

The Federal Communications Commission, in a split decision, approved a 
request from Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) provider Pulver.com to 
be immune from the hefty stack of government rules, taxes and 
requirements that applies to 20th-century telephone networks.

"This is in no way different than e-mail and other peer-to-peer 
applications blossoming on the Internet," FCC Chairman Michael Powell 
said. "Such services have never been held to be telecom services." 
Commissioner Michael Copps opposed the decision, and Jonathan Adelstein 
said he partially dissented.

In a significant limitation, the decision does not address whether 
traditional phone regulations might apply to VoIP services that 
interconnect with the traditional telephone system. As a result, the 
FCC's vote for now only applies to developers of VoIP applications 
similar to Pulver.com's Free World Dialup (FWD)--software that allows 
voice conversations to take place between computers, but not between 
computers and ordinary telephones.

Other applications covered by the decision include Skype and instant 
messaging programs from Microsoft, Yahoo and America Online. But the 
ruling appears to leave in limbo VoIP services from Vonage Holdings, 
cable giants and others that allow calls to be placed from a computer 
over a broadband connection to any phone number in the world, and vice 
versa.

<snip>

http://news.com.com/2100-7352_3-5158105.html?part=rss&tag=feed&subj=news

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