[IP] : FCC: 'Pure' VoIP not a phone service
-----Original Message-----
From: Claudio Gutierrez <cgutierrez@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: Thu, 12 Feb 2004 17:38:48
To:Dave Farber <dave@xxxxxxxxxx>
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>
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