Net Phone Regulations: Coming Soon?

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Next year may be a big one for regulation of VOIP (voice over Internet Protocol) in the U.S according to some speakers at the Voice on the Net (VON) conference in Santa Clara, California this week.

[blockquote]At issue is how governments should treat VOIP, which is a data packet technology but to the customer looks like a voice product and thus a possible replacement for traditional circuit-switched phone service. Phone service is subject to a number of federal and state regulations and taxes that may or may not be appropriate for offerings based on the new technology. Among the issues are access charges paid to carriers for using their infrastructure, fees to support universal access to phone service, emergency 911 service, access for the disabled, and support for law enforcement wiretaps.
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[link=http://www.pcworld.com/news/article/0,aid,115449,00.asp]The full report[/link]

TheSmJ

We may get VoIP at my house, as it's only $15 per month.

kanezfan

every time some new technology comes along, the companies supporting the old technologies scream bloody murder. i think maybe there will be less and less need for POTS phone service in the home, as many people are starting to rely solely on their cell phones. why would you need a telephone at home anymore if you think about it. sure some of you still connect through dial up, but eventually we'll all have access to some sort of broadband access. it's evolution. i love watching these old stodgy companies fight these new technologies, it's evolution man. all these phone companies need to either evolve or go the way of the dodo.

KingFish

Since there really is no standard for voice over IP I think it'll be a regulation nightmare. Ultimately they won't be able to control it. Will talking over teamspeak and other VOIP programs be regulated too? If so, how? I already pay a pretty penny for bandwidth at my house and I feel that it covers whatever I do with my bandwidth. That's for debate though. The only thing that keeps me from moving my voice service to cellphone is the phone line needed for directv. Otherwise all my features are covered in my cellphone and it's portable too. I predict it'll be a fiery debate on capitol hill as the telephone companies have some pretty good lobbyists on the payroll.

KingFish

Camman

regulating VoIP is a bunch of bull****. We already pay an arm and a leg for our high speed net access, we should be able to send whatever data we want over it, when it comes down to it, VoIP is just bits over data lines just like anything, what a crock of ****.

That's like charging more to use a fax machine at the end of a phone line because it's a different TYPE of communication over the same line, as kanez said, its just because the telephone industry is worried they're gonna lose money, guess it's time they COMPETE to provide a low cost VoIP solution instead of whining to the FCC.