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June 10, 2005

Warning: VoIP is Dangerous for Your Health?

I'm thinking of Woody Allen's "Sleeper", when Woody Allen awakes after 200 years to find that everything he had been told was good for him (brussel sprouts) was bad for him, and everything that was bad for him (hot fudge sundaes) were good for him. Well, I had thought improving our ability to communicate was good. Were we as wrong about this as we were about carbs? Is government telling us they were as wrong to promote new forms of communications as they were about the old food pyramid?

And man, when it rains it pours. Since when did VoIP become the greatest threat to national security since Al Quaeda? Not only did the FCC feel compelled to warn America of the dangers of using a VoIP line by issuing their VoIP Consumer Advisory today, but the New Jersey Legislature has just jumped on the "public safety" bandwagon. It seems a New Jersey State Assembly panel has released a bill that would impose E911 obligations on VoIP providers.

Uh, New Jersey, I think your at least a couple of weeks, if not several months, late. I think the FCC preempted you and subsumed the field when it claimed jurisdiction over VoIP and the social obligations that it entails. But, I guess it never hurts a politician to get in a sound bite indicating that he supports motherhood, apple pie or public safety. Some of the political statements, however, strike me as overblown grandstanding. One New Jersey Assemblyperson was quoted as follows: "Internet phone service sounds like a technological advancement, but the disadvantages of the service far outweigh the advantages," said Van Drew (D-Cape May, Atlantic, Cumberland). "Residents have come to rely on rapid response emergency 911 service when something tragic happens. Instead of VoIP being a step forward, it's actually a step backward." I assume he's talking about these VoIP replacement services. Surely, he could not be referring to the cutting-edge innovative services that greatly enhance a user's Internet experience?

In any event, at my last count, New Jersey laid claim to maybe half of all great technology and communications advances of the last 150 years from Thomas Edison's Labs to Bell Labs. I would hate to see the state with such a forward-looking heritage become the backwater of the communications revolution and a VoIP ghetto...but stranger things have been known to happen.

As for the FCC VoIP Consumer Advisory, the FCC felt compelled, among other things, to warn consumers that if your power goes out, your VoIP service might go out as well. I don't know if the FCC ever put out a similar advisory when someone came up with a cordless POTS phone that also required AC power, but doesn't that service fail during a power outage?"

Posted by jeff on June 10, 2005 10:00 PM | Permalink

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