Public Knowledge, Allies Seek FCC Action on Interconnected VoIP Petition

Public Knowledge and other groups urged FCC action on a March petition asking the regulator to classify interconnected VoIP as a Communications Act Title II service (see 2203020052), in a webinar Friday. With revised net neutrality rules on hold at a 2-2 FCC, Public Knowledge Senior Vice President Harold Feld said the FCC faces a dilemma, and the time to provide clarity is now.

“There are already problems that are emerging from the commission’s paralysis” and “a real confusion in the states” because of contrary decisions in the federal courts on what the states are allowed to do to regulate VoIP, Feld said. “As the public switch network fades away, we start to have a real problem here,” he said. The FCC ruled SMS texting and broadband aren’t traditional Title II services, he said. “Where does the commission’s authority come from for the remaining regulations?” he asked. Network reliability and resiliency, privacy protection for voice calls, 911 obligations “are all dependent on the rapidly fading, traditional legacy network,” he said.

“If it looks like a phone and acts like a phone and uses your old telephone equipment like a phone … shouldn’t we just call it a phone?” Feld asked.

There’s “a lack of certainty, a lack of regulatory clarity,” said Olivia Wein, staff attorney at the National Consumer Law Center. “Probably what it means is uneven consumer protection depending on what state you live in,” she said. Customer proprietary network information requirements for telecom carriers are “very, very strong” and “consumers would be very sad to see that go,” she said. Lack of clear regulatory authority hampers the FCC’s ability to impose truth-in-billing rules, she said: “We’re clearly in a weaker consumer protection framework.”

Consumers often aren’t aware of the underlying technology when they make a VoIP call, Wein said: “It acts like a phone. It is your phone. This is traditional voice service.” The “easy way out of this” for the FCC is “clear classification” of interconnected VoIP as a Title II service, she said.

“Once traditional phone service is phased out, the commission’s authority over VoIP will be questionable because the agency will no longer have ancillary authority,” said Brian Thorn, Communications Workers of America senior researcher. “This will prevent the commission from … ensuring that phones work during emergencies by mandating that carriers work together to cover each other’s traffic, but also by requiring providers to replace discontinued networks that are at least as good or better than what was previously there,” he said: “Failing to classify VoIP service will result in a crisis of authority.”

Thorn noted when the FCC sought to impose backup power rules on wireless carriers in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, relying on its ancillary authority, the agency “faced strong resistance” from U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit (see 0805090124) and “ultimately abandoned the effort. ... When you don’t have meaningful requirements, companies won’t restore service in a timely manner, and our members have seen this on the ground.”

Interconnection “has always been the hallmark of competition” and companies like Granite Telecommunications “wouldn’t exist without smart competition laws,” said Sana Sheikh, deputy general counsel at the competitive carrier. “It was the lack of interconnection that led to the 100-year AT&T monopoly,” she said: “It’s really important for us to learn from our history so we can avoid repeating it.”