Take Action - Support a national framework

The VON Coalition

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Help ensure a uniform national framework for Internet communications

national map Ensuring a uniform national framework for VoIP helps to enable new innovations and investment. For Interconnected VoIP services that substitute for a traditional phone service, it helps ensure consistent levels of 911 access, privacy protection, universal service support, from one jurisdiction to another -- without having to comply with a patchwork of potential conflicting state and local rules. For new and innovative Internet communications technologies that aren't substitutes for tradition phone services, preventing conflicting state rules can help advance consumer benefits in a largely unregulated environment.

In 2004, the FCC released the landmark "Vonage Order" which prevented potentially conflicting state regulatory models from being applied to Vonage's VoIP service in exchange for a nation regulatory framework. The FCC recognized that innovative and evolving services such as VoIP should not be subject to a patchwork of regulations that would directly conflict with the goals of the federal Act and the FCC’s pro-competitive deregulatory rules. In doing so, the FCC also made clear that pre-empting state regulation of VoIP services was essential to “increase investment and innovation in [VoIP services] to the benefit of American consumers.”

Policymakers at all levels – in Congress, at the FCC, in the states, and in the courts -- have come to recognize that to unleash the vast benefits that VoIP can deliver, policymakers must avoid applying a potential patchwork of multiple and inevitably conflicting regulatory models. But its time to make it clear for ALL VoIP services.

In its Vonage decision, the commission made clear that they would also assert exclusive federal jurisdiction for other similar types of VoIP services. Now that the courts have reaffirmed the Vonage Order and the commission’s authority to do so, it’s time to take the next step and confirm a national framework for all VoIP services.

Tell the FCC that to ensure a uniform national framework for all VoIP services.

Note: Information filed on this form will be publicly available, as FCC comments are considered a matter of public record. The FCC does not accept comments from outside the United States.

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I am writing to express my strong support for extending exclusive federal jurisdiction to all VoIP services. With the right public policies, VoIP can help deliver new innovations and more affordable ways to communicate. For example, VoIP competition is projected to save consumers an astounding $110 billion over the next 5 years. And by harnessing VoIP as a broadband driver, just a 7% increase in broadband adoption could create nearly 2.4 million more jobs per year. These innovative new VoIP services are also connecting friends together on social networking sites, giving voice to blogs, transforming video games, integrating voice and video into instant messaging, enabling people with disabilities to access a host of new accessibility tools not previously possible, allowing one telephone number to reach all your phones at once, and ushering in a new era of voice recognition based information retrieval tools. Subjecting these new and emerging voice enabled Internet communication tools to a patchwork of state regualtory requirements could prevent consumers from taking advantage of their many benefits. As the FCC explained in its original Vonage order, the “integrated capabilities and features” characteristics of VoIP “are not unique to [Vonage’s service], but are inherent features of most, if not all, IP-based services.” The FCC’s conclusions about Vonage’s service apply equally as well to “other types of IP-enabled services that have basic characteristics similar to” Vonage’s which the Commission expressly recognized as including “cable companies” and other “facilities based providers” and indicated it would “preclude state regulation to the same extent.” If the Commission, however, subjects these new technologies to legacy regulations designed for the 100 year old telephone network or to a set of 50 conflicting regulatory models, consumers and business users will miss out on the new services, increased choices, new applications and features, and better prices that VoIP can deliver. For these reasons, I beleive the Commission should act to prevent state regulation of VoIP and rule that ALL VoIP services are interstate in nature and if subject to regulation are subject to the exclusive but limited jurisdiction of the FCC. Thank you.

You are filing a comment on proceeding 04-36 (IP-Enabled Services). More information from the FCC on the jurisdiction of VoIP can be found at FCC release on Vonage Order or FCC Vonage Order.

Help ensure a uniform national framework for Internet communications

Tell the FCC that to ensure a uniform national framework for all VoIP services.

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