Voice on the Net (VON) Coalition Urges Regulatory Caution

A new Voice on the Net (VON) Coalition has been formed by leading industry players to advance regulatory policies promoting VoIP in the United States. The coalition expressed concern that ongoing policy reviews could lead to new regulatory barriers that would slow VoIP adoption and delay the extraordinary benefits of VoIP.


The VON Coalition supports efforts to address a number of critical issues like the availability of 911 emergency services and law enforcement surveillance, but believes that these and other legitimate concerns can be addressed without imposing heavy regulation on VoIP. The Coalition also favors taking a new look at the Universal Service Fund to ensure its sustainability through a system of fair contributions from all providers of telephone number-based communications services. Likewise, the group favors an overhaul of the outmoded inter-carrier compensation regime, which it called "a hodgepodge of implicit subsidies."


Members of the coalition include AT&T, Callipso, Convedia, IceNet, iBasis, Intel, Intrado, ITXC, MCI, PointOne and Texas Instruments. http://www.vonplus.org