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November 19, 2003

In Atlanta for the NASUCA Annual Meeting

I arrived last night in Atlanta for the annual meeting of NASUCA, the National Association of State Utility Consumer Advocates.

This week in Atlanta there are quite a number of State Regulators from around the US attending the Fall NARUC meetings and the NASUCA meeting is co-located in the same town to take advantage of the fact that members of NASUCA would also be attending parts of the NARUC meeting. In the world of conferences this is known as a "classic parasite play." This does work and there is much to be said about taking advantage of the geography and the people who are here.

NARUC's current draft VoIP resolution is not very friendly towards the IP Communications Industry and it is just another sign that NARUC will continue to try to fight IP Communication Service Providers in 2004 on a State level.

I'm in town to be part of a panel discussion in the morning at the NASUCA meeting entitled: "Voice on Net: Too Good to be Regulated?" My hope is that this crowd will be a little more receptive than the USTA audience was (this was because they introduced me as a representative of Vonage rather than a Vongage co-founder) and hopefully we will be able to find common ground with some of the consumer advocates insomuch that the introduction of alternative local service providers more than likely will help reduce prices for local phone service which in turn should be viewed as a positive for the communities being served.

I first met up with someone from NASUCA at Fall 2003 VON and I'm looking forward to reaching out and extending the IP Communications Olive Branch to other members of NASUCA.

Posted by jeff on November 19, 2003 01:41 AM | Permalink

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Comments

Jeff, please be advised that NARUC never proposed and never adopted an "anti-VOIP" resolution. NARUC, like NASUCA, has been supportive of new forms of competition in local and long distance phone markets. The resolution merely cautions the FCC about the possibility of unintended consequences of classifying certain services as information services in addition to the potential increased risk to public safety, customer loss of control over content and reduced support base for federal and State universal service as well as State and local fees and taxes with such classifications. I trust that the olive branch you offerred to NASUCA is available to NARUC.
Bob Nelson, Chairman, NARUC Telecom Committee

Posted by: Bob Nelson at December 21, 2003 11:48 AM

Great news to report from NARUC.

Just heard that Susan Kennedy from California last night helped take out all of the strong langauge from the pending NARUC anti-VoIP resolution.

Posted by: Jeff Pulver at November 19, 2003 02:11 PM