Thursday, April 14, 2005

Federal Regulators Face Confounding VoIP Choices

Bottom line: Should Internet telephony providers be regulated like the local phone company or rather classified as a data service provider and left alone, much as cable TV companies have been?

Feeling threatened by the lower-cost competitors, traditional phone companies argue that Voice over Internet Protocol service should be subject to the same oversight and fee requirements that they face.

There is no indication, though, that the new Federal Communications Commission chairman, Kevin Martin, intends to depart from the largely ``hands-off'' approach charted by his predecessor, Michael Powell, in an effort to encourage innovation.

The FCC has said, in seeking comment on possible VoIP regulation, that it would start from the premise that ``IP-enabled (Internet Protocol) services are minimally regulated.''

Nonetheless, some regulations are likely.

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