VoIP Debates to Determine Service's Fate in U.S. (cont'd)

NPRM Comments Filed
July 14 was the deadline for submission of comments to the FCC's NPRM on VoIP. Pipeline spoke with Jason P. Talley, CEO of Nuvio Corporation, a wholesale VoIP provider, for an inside look at the issues being addressed in the VoIP NPRM. Nuvio's VoIP offerings share many of the features identified in the Pulver.com decision as attributes of information services. For example, like the FWD service, Nuvio's VoIP service relies on users to provide their own broadband access.

Because Nuvio's VoIP offerings provide information services in addition to simple voice transmission, its services are distinguished from AT&T's IP-based telecommunications service, which provides "only voice transmission with no net protocol conversion." The fact that Nuvio interconnects with the PSTN to terminate calls to or receive calls from certain individuals does not make it a telecommunications service. Rather, Nuvio's specialized CPE, its requirement that customers 'bring their own broadband', the net protocol conversion it performs to enable communications with the traditional PSTN, and the array of added features and services companies like Nuvio provide, should classify such VoIP offerings as information services.

As discussed in Nuvio's initial comments filed with the FCC, Nuvio and other VoIP providers are retail purchasers of telephone circuits and are charged USF fees by LECs. Such providers also deliver services through LECs under established interconnection compensation agreements. As a result, contrary to the arguments that VoIP services circumvent the USF system and other intercarrier charges entirely, many VoIP providers already contribute significantly to the funding of the USF program and willingly pay the interconnect charges their LEC partners pass on to them.

Nuvio's response to the NPRM mirrors, at some level, the various bills proposed in Congress and discussed above. Nuvio is seeking a light regulatory touch that is more reactive than predictive. It argues that VoIP technology is different than the the old PSTN in that it may be impossible to know where users are located, making geographical definitions obsolete. Thus it is no longer appropriate to divide its regulation among state and local jurisdictions. It argues that transferring regulatory control over VoIP from the states to the FCC is one way to address this issue. Such a ruling would also simplify the playing field for VoIP providers as they roll out service because they would not have to manage the subtle differences among the 50 U.S. states and its territorial holdings.

Regulation to Stop Abuses, Not Progress
Additionally, Nuvio argues that regulatory structures that were originally put in place as a response to abuses in the market by telecom monopolies are irrelevant to a new market that is active with competitors. Talley notes that the fees that the states are due can be made up through means other than IP regulation. Another goal of Nuvio's is to insure relief from the burden of requirements that may be technologically impossible - such as e-911 auto-location based on IP addresses. VoIP companies and technologists will need some time to develop such capabilities, and VoIP should be allowed to flourish in order to drive its maturation.

Although no decisive actions are expected until after November's elections, VoIP will be high on the to-do list for Congress when it reconvenes in 2005. The input Congress receives now in the form of expert comments from companies such as Nuvio, however, will have much to do with determining VoIP's fate in the United States.

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