CPUC Plan Regulating VoIP Lacks 'Strong Factual Basis,' Say Academics

The California Public Utilities Commission didn’t do enough research before proposing that it regulate VoIP services, the New York Law School’s Advanced Communications Law & Policy Institute (ACLP) said Tuesday. The telecom industry last week condemned the proposed decision that would say interconnected VoIP providers are telephone corporations subject to the same laws and rules as other wireline and wireless telcos (see 2410110040). In reply comments, companies, including Comcast and Frontier Communications, continued calling for workshops and further review. The CPUC “failed to offer a strong factual basis to justify its expansive proposal for extending common carrier regulation to VOIP services because it did not endeavor to collect data, information, and input via evidentiary hearings and other mechanisms typically deployed by the Commission in similar circumstances,” ACLP said. “Had the Commission gathered more data and information about the downsides of regulating advanced communications services like VOIP as common carriers, it would have been able to identify the negative consumer outcomes that tend to stem from fragmented state-by-state public utility regulation of these offerings, including higher costs and fewer choices for consumers.” The CPUC was scheduled to vote on the item Thursday, but staff postponed it until Nov. 7 (see 2410150033).