WASHINGTON-New legislation introduced by Reps. Cliff Stearns (R-Fla.) and Rick Boucher (D-Va.) would give federal regulators unfettered oversight of Voice-over-Internet-Protocol applications, while requiring service providers to compensate Bell telephone giants for connections and preserving existing social programs and emergency calling for consumers.
The Advanced Internet Communications Services Act of 2004 outlines for the Federal Communications Commission procedures to promote investment and innovation in the deployment of advanced applications such as VoIP, while maintaining core public policies that impose limited obligations on AICS providers that offer voice communications.
VoIP has the potential to cause disruption throughout the telecom industry, including wireless.
“In 2003, the state of Florida chose to allow VoIP to develop free from unnecessary regulation. The legislature felt that such action was in the public interest, and I believe it was the proper course of action,” said Stearns. “This bill goes a step further by removing advanced Internet communications services from debate that exists in whether to classify AICS as an information service or telecommunications service. Furthermore, by establishing that AICS are interstate services, we eliminate the regulatory uncertainty of a myriad of different state regulatory approaches, which would impede investment in these new services,” he added.
Stearns and Boucher are members of the House Commerce subcommittee on telecom and the Internet, which held a hearing last Wednesday on the future of VoIP policy.
“VoIP is going to be big. It’s going to make cell phone expansion look like wagon trains,” said Rep. Joe Barton (R-Texas), chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee.
The Stearns-Boucher measure adds to the mix of VoIP bills, which generally are deregulatory and seek to limit or eliminate state jurisdiction. At the same time, the various bills-including those championed by Rep. Chip Pickering (R-Miss.) and Sen. John Sununu (R-N.H.)-are not identical and differ in some key areas.
Meanwhile, the FCC and some states are working to craft VoIP rules.
“The measure which Mr. Stearns and I are introducing today (Tuesday) will enable the expedited deployment of AICS services by placing all authority over these services at the federal level, treating all providers of the service equally under federal law and applying a light regulatory touch which will encourage investment in, and deployment of, AICS on various Internet platforms,” Boucher said. “At the same time, our measure will impose targeted responsibilities on AICS voice providers to assure that universal service funding is sustained, that E-911 services are maintained, that owners of the public switched network are compensated when their facilities are utilized for the termination of Internet-enabled voice calls and that individuals with disabilities can be assured of access,” he added.
The Bush administration is wrestling internally over the FBI’s desire to subject VoIP to wiretap obligations.
