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May 12, 2005
Big day for VoIP Regulation in North America
As predicted, today has been a most auspicious occasion in the history of Internet regulation, generally, and VoIP regulation in particular. The FCC has, in fact, place the 911 for VoIP on the Agenda for its
Open Meeting on May 19. A big thanks to all of you who have weighed in with the FCC to ensure that it does not stifle IP-based communications under the guise of ensuring a cookie-cutter emergency response solution that emulates the capabilities of the legacy telecom networks. I still fear that the FCC will issue an overly-broad Order that will interfere with the advancement of IP-based communications and especially the ability of the IP-based communications industry to provide nomadic services and even more advanced emergency response capabilities.
Perhaps I should not have been to quick to criticize the actions of the Canadian CRTC. The Canadians, at least, seem to recognize that its emergency response solution should not compel E911 for nomadic services, just a basic 911 offering. It is still unclear to me how the FCC will come out on this issue.
Furthermore, the CRTC released its long-anticipated order on the regulatory framework for IP-based communications services. At least the CRTC has opted not to impose onerous regulations on the new entrants, even if it has imposed ongoing telecom regulation on the incumbents when offering VoIP services. We have yet to see how the Americans will regulate IP-based communications services. The FCC proceeding on IP-based communications services is not expected for many months still -- with the exception of carving out the emergency response issue and set to impose onerous obligations on all providers of connected two-way VoIP services.
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Posted by jeff on May 12, 2005 06:54 PM | Permalink
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Comments
On the techie front, one of the most important elements of the CRTC decision lies in paragraph 369 which states:
369. Accordingly, the Commission requests the CRTC Interconnection Steering Committee to file, by November 2005, IP-to-IP interconnection interface guidelines, along with a report detailing its progress as well as any outstanding issues. The Commission will determine what, if any, further course of action may be required at that time.
This means that it will be possible one day to envision a world where competitors do not need to become telephone companies just to interconnect to the telephone companies ...
I do not want to be the last one to go bankrupt trying to pay for a a Tekelek Eagle V STP ...
Posted by: Francois Menard at May 12, 2005 09:21 PM