October 20, 2004

VoIP Urgency, Not

FCC Chairman Michael Powell vows to declare that Internet telephony services, known as Voice Over IP (or VoIP), are exempt from state regulation. "We cannot avoid this question any longer," Powell said yesterday.

Well, they can and likely will. See, the FCC has been sitting on this hot potato, the third rail of American telecommunications regulation, for eight years now. In that time the legal doctrine and politics of VoIP have become so convoluted that conservatives are openly fighting among themselves and the special interests -- in this case state regulators, consumer advocates and ostensible protectors of "universal service" -- are essentially able to block VoIP with a simple veto threat of taxes.

To hold that packets flying across national and indeed international digital networks should be subject to state commission economic regulatory authority is to dumb down the internet to match the limited vision of government officials. That would be a tragedy.

Powell says he wants a regulatory revolution. Stirring rhetoric and logically correct. Mike is a very smart guy. But that's not the same as action, for which the FCC's lack thereof is hardly unpexpected, just disappointing. The FCC is the black hole of American public policy and its steady mission-creep into high-tech issues has been remarkable. But even more disapppointing is that the Internet and IT industries have let this happen. It may be too late to save them because to make a revolution, the rebels have to attack before the empire becomes organized. (Yes, those aren't the droids you want.) I fear we are at that point already.

Update: Still, I am very glad to be an American. In Belarus, they are arresting business people for providing VoIP services.

 Posted by glenn

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