Vonage CEO Jeffrey Citron warned Fri. that “premature regulations could kill the nascent VoIP industry.” Speaking at a policy lunch sponsored by the Progress & Freedom Foundation in Washington, Citron said regulations could slow broadband deployment, undermine the U.S. position as a technological leader and force service providers offshore. He urged legislators to “bring clarity to the VoIP regulatory framework to protect competition. New laws are needed to ensure Internet applications remain free from regulation.”
Country of origin cases
The FCC Media Bureau (MB) ordered EchoStar to submit a compliance report and plan concerning WCTC (Ch. 27, Ind.) Marion, Ill. The order responded to a must-carry complaint filed by WCTC licensee Tri-State Christian TV, which had said it was the only station in Paducah on a wing satellite and EchoStar’s customer service representatives (CSRs) discouraged viewers from installing the 2nd dish (CD Aug 18 p8). The MB said it couldn’t order EchoStar to place the station on the main satellite, but the bureau was “concerned about the interaction between EchoStar CSRs and potential EchoStar subscribers.” Besides remedies proposed in the original ruling on EchoStar’s 2-dish solution, the bureau said the compliance report should include: (1) The percentage of requests for a 2nd dish in the market, installations completed, explanations for incomplete installations and estimated completion for remaining requests. (2) Current and future notification efforts, ads about the local package and CSR training efforts. (3) Details about steps, taken or planned, to ensure full awareness of local stations and free 2nd dish and installation. The report is due in 30 days.
The FCC late Thurs. announced its VoIP proceeding would be on the agenda for its Feb. 12 open meeting, along with a petition by Pulver.com for a ruling that its VoIP offering wasn’t a telecom service. The Pulver item was surprising because the FBI had expressed concern about the FCC’s acting on VoIP classification issues before handling a related CALEA issue (CD Feb 5 p4). The more general VoIP notice of proposed rulemaking is expected to ask for comment on several questions about how VoIP should be treated, but probably won’t make any conclusions.
BRUSSELS -- As the U.S. moves toward mandated digital copyright protection under the FCC’s broadcast flag rules, consumers should expect a similar situation in Europe, a consumer advocate said here Wed. Broadcast flag technology signals consumer electronic devices that certain content is protected and bars some uses of the content, such as Internet redistribution. But the technology also will affect PCs and other consumer electronic devices, said Chris Murray of Consumers Union. The broadcast flag puts open architecture and personal computing at stake, Murray said at a Transatlantic Consumer Dialog (TACD) forum here on copyright in the digital age.
Sprint Chmn. Gary Forsee called on the FCC to bring “much-needed clarity by promptly ruling that phone-to-phone VoIP should pay access charges.” Speaking at a Sprint investors meeting Wed. in N.Y., he said his company would take a high profile in addressing VoIP issues this year, pushing regulators to eliminate regulatory uncertainty: “Our perspective is to take prudent positions on initiatives such as UNE-P and VoIP to minimize the effect of regulatory mixed messages.” He expressed concern that “regulatory uncertainty” could interfere with the industry’s moving forward: “What this industry needs from regulation is clear, rational rules, especially surrounding VoIP and intercarrier compensation. Right now it’s a mess.”
The FCC should exclude the termination service provided by Focal to the VoIP industry if the Commission decides that access charges should have been paid on the phone-to-phone IP calls described in AT&T’s petition, Focal told FCC Wireline Bureau officials in an ex parte meeting last week. In an ex parte filing following the meeting, it said the exclusion was warranted because: (1) A CLEC that received a call from a VoIP provider in time division multiplexing (TDM) protocol and terminated it within the same LATA couldn’t be liable for any interstate access charges the Commission might decide to impose: “Interstate access charges are owed by interexchange carriers, not by access providers… If the Commission were to determine that access charges should have been paid on phone-to-phone IP traffic, the IXC carrying that traffic… would be liable for such charges to the CLEC, as well as to any other LEC involved in terminating the traffic, in which case the two LECs would be jointly providing exchange access to the VoIP provider.” (2) Focal has taken “the only reasonable step available to it” to ensure it terminates only traffic exempt from access charges. For example, it said it couldn’t determine whether VoIP traffic originated on a computer or whether an enhanced service was performed upstream. It said it also wouldn’t be physically possible for Focal to “attempt a constant 24-hour, 365-day, surveillance of the upstream environment” of all VoIP traffic it received: “Given that the Commission’s ESP [enhanced service provider] exemption entitles [ESPs] to obtain local service from [LECs], Focal is clearly entitled to serve these entities. The express warranty that Focal requires from its VoIP customers is the best and perhaps only way that LECs can serve ESPs as contemplated by the Commission’s exemption.” Focal also suggested that if the Commission decided to apply some charge to phone-to-phone IP calls other than the reciprocal compensation rates currently paid, the industry would need to develop “some method of flagging these calls, which currently are not distinguishable to downstream carriers from non-VoIP calls. Such a flagging approach might also identify the ESP involved using a signaling field that is not presently employed.”
Sprint said its consolidated net operating revenue rose 2.1% to $6.7 billion in the 4th quarter from a year earlier as it continued to cut costs and reduce debt trying to offset weak long distance sales and net income dipped 2.6% to $38 million. The company also announced a new product bundling strategy.
The Network for Instructional TV (NITV) asked the FCC to consider another option to address whether Instructional TV Fixed Service (ITFS) licensees should be able to sell spectrum to commercial operators. NITV told the FCC in a filing last week that it was caught in a “triangle of unmanageable conflicts” involving the FCC’s interest in encouraging the fullest use of ITFS spectrum, a proposal by EarthLink to open parts of the band for broadband uses and educators who argue ITFS spectrum should be kept intact. NITV proposed a 4th alternative that would: (1) Let educators keep full use of the spectrum or lease options, as is the case under current rules. (2) Give educators the option of selling ITFS spectrum to commercial interests if they could demonstrate to the FCC they would use acquired funds to meet “their educational mission.” (3) Provide that 5% of any spectrum sold to the commercial sector be set aside for the continued use of the educator who held the original ITFS spectrum. “Leaving educators with only midband spectrum, as EarthLink suggests, and leaving educators potentially saddled with the entire cost of operating that spectrum, will not encourage auction participation because this approach is likely to diminish interest by educators fearful that no commercial party will provide operational support if ITFS is left only with the midband,” NITV said. The FCC adopted a proposal last year that asked a wide range of questions on how ITFS spectrum should be regulated. It sought comments on possible changes that would move away from a broadcast-style regulatory approach for ITFS and MMDS spectrum to one that would hasten the rollout of next- generation systems for wireless broadband.
A program agreement that would streamline wireless and broadcast tower siting reviews ran into trouble last week when the Advisory Council on Historic Preservation (ACHP) raised concerns about how certain types of sites would be excluded, sources said. FCC and some industry officials said they remained bullish that differences could be worked out relatively quickly. But they said a key unresolved issue was one that had drawn recent Capitol Hill attention: Treatment of sites “potentially” eligible for listing on the National Register of Historic Places.
The FBI has asked the FCC to deal with CALEA concerns before acting on pending broadband proceedings, which could delay the VoIP proposal circulating among commissioners on the agency’s 8th floor, we're told. In a letter sent Jan. 28, the FBI, Dept. of Justice and the Drug Enforcement Administration said they planned to file a joint petition within a few weeks asking the FCC to determine “what broadband services and service providers should be subject to CALEA,” as well as the procedures needed to bring them into compliance. They asked the FCC to complete the current CALEA rulemaking before acting on other broadband proceedings. The FBI had indicated concerns about the difficulty of imposing CALEA’s wiretapping requirements on broadband services such as VoIP.