FCC Chairman Michael Powell has announced plans to look at how to regulate Internet-based phone companies such as Vonage Holdings Corp. and 8x8 Inc.
“We have actually the accelerated the timetable on this” notice of public rulemaking, said FCC spokesman Richard Diamond Friday.
In recent months, state public service commissions have started investigating how to regulate Internet-based phone companies such as Vonage. A recent court decision has highlighted the complexities and uncertainty involved with regulating VoIP, and the telecommunications industry has called on the FCC to release federal rules and set the record straight.
The court decision in Minnesota “and other developments show the importance of examining and settling the questions involved,” Diamond said.
“Over the course of the next year, after full public comment and thoughtful consideration of the record, the FCC plans to follow up the NPRM with a report and order on the VoIP issues raised in the proceeding,” Powell said in a letter to U.S. senator Ron Wyden (D-Ore.).
Before the FCC initiates a notice of proposed rulemaking soliciting comments on how to regulate VoIP providers, it will hold a forum Dec. 1. Regulators, VoIP companies and others are being invited to discuss the role of digital technologies in the consumer market, how to regulate the services, and how to achieve public policy objectives such as emergency 911, universal service support and homeland security. Diamond said the forum will most likely be held at FCC headquarters in Washington D.C.
Last month, a judge said the Minnesota Public Utilities Commission erred in seeking to regulate Edison, N.J.-based Vonage.
“VoIP services necessarily are information services and state regulation over VoIP services is not permissible because of the recognizable congressional intent to leave the Internet and information services largely unregulated,” U.S. District Court Judge Michael Davis wrote in an order.
