The
FCC ruled against AT&T in a case over whether telephone
calls placed over the PSTN, converted to IP, transmitted over an
IP backbone, and then terminated on the PSTN should be subject
to access charges.
The FCC found this type of phone-to-phone IP telephony
"lacks the characteristics of an information service and
bears the characteristics of a telecommunications service."
Specifically, the FCC noted that the AT&T phone-to-phone
Internet telephony (1) holds itself out as providing voice
telephony or facsimile transmission service; (2) does not
require the customer to use CPE different from that CPE
necessary to place an ordinary touch-tone call (or facsimile
transmission) over the public switched telephone network; (3)
allows the customer to call telephone numbers assigned in
accordance with the North American Numbering Plan, and
associated international agreements; and (4) transmits customer
information without net change in form or content.
The FCC ruling determined that to the extent that any Internet
telephony provider obtains the same circuit-switched access as
obtained by other interexchange carriers, they impose the same
burdens on the local exchange as do other interexchange
carriers, and therefore should pay similar access charges.
Hence, AT&T's specific service is subject to interstate
access charges, pending resolution of related access issues in
the FCC's upcoming Intercarrier Compensation and IP-Enabled
Services rulemaking proceedings.
The FCC restated its commitment to "foster the growth of IP
services through a hands off regulatory approach in a manner
that is nonetheless consistent with our other statutory
obligations, pending the resolution of intercarrier compensation
issues in the rulemaking proceedings."
In the ruling, the FCC also noted that it sees "no benefit
in promoting one party's use of a specific technology to
engage in arbitrage at the cost of what other parties are
entitled to under the statute and our rules, particularly where,
based on the record before us, end users have received no
benefit in terms of additional functionality or reduced
prices."
The FCC also found that "although AT&T asserts that
conversion to IP can produce enormous efficiencies by allowing
the integrated provision of voice, data, and enhanced services,
exempting from interstate access charges a service such as
AT&T's that provides no enhanced functionality would
create artificial incentives for carriers to convert to IP
networks. Rather than converting at a pace commensurate with the
capability to provide enhanced functionality, carriers would
convert to IP networks merely to take advantage of the cost
advantage afforded to voice traffic that is converted, no matter
how briefly, to IP and exempted from access charges. IP
technology should be deployed based on its potential to create
new services and network efficiencies, not solely as a means to
avoid paying access charges. "http://www.fcc.gov
- In February 2004, FCC Commissioners voted 4-to-1 to approve a Declaratory Ruling that pulver.com's Free World Dialup (FWD) service is neither a “telecommunications service�? nor “telecommunications,�? and therefore not subject to traditional telephone regulation. The FCC also declared FWD to be an unregulated information service that is subject to federal jurisdiction. Pulver's FWD allows users of broadband Internet access services to make VoIP or other types of peer-to-peer communications directly to other FWD members, without charge.
