Should Sprint (News - Alert) have to pay access charges for VoIP calls?
The battle over the answer to that question will head to the Supreme Court, according to Reuters.
The issue in question is whether Sprint Communications Co., a subsidiary of Sprint Nextel (News - Alert) Corp., should have to pay access charges for calls carried by Windstream Iowa Communications—formerly Iowa Telecom—that were transmitted over the Internet rather than the traditional phone network.
The federal Telecommunications Act of 1996, which defines such matters, makes a distinction between information and telecommunication service. Telecommunications services demand an access fee while information services, such as Internet access, do not. Sprint maintains that VoIP is an information service, and therefore should not be subject to the access charges Windstream (News - Alert) is levying.
The Iowa Utilities Board, which regulates telecommunications in the state, so far has sided with Windstream. It said Sprint was required to pay.
The issue before the Supreme Court is not whether VoIP is an information or telecommunications service, however, but whether the case should first be heard in federal or Iowa state court.
The access charges were contested in federal court by Sprint; it argued that the question of whether the calls should be subject to compensation is a federal law issue. There also are simultaneous proceedings in state court, however, and a federal judge has declared that the state proceedings should be resolved first.
This ruling was upheld by the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in St. Louis. It said that Sprint's request that the utilities board be prevented from ordering it to pay the fees “interferes with an ongoing state judicial proceeding,” according to Reuters (News - Alert).
Not content with that ruling, Sprint now will take its complaint about the order of proceedings all the way to the highest court in the land.
While the order of the proceedings is a relatively minor point, the issue of paying access charges for VoIP calls is anything but minor.
Traditionally VoIP has slipped in under “information services” in the Telecommunications Act, which has freed it from some of the cost that non-IP calls have labored under. If Sprint fails in its claim that it does not have to pay an access charge for VoIP calls, it could raise the price of VoIP calls and add another level or regulation that will complicate the VoIP market and some of the innovation taking place there.
So even though the Supreme Court decision will not have an immediate influence on the VoIP industry, the Sprint case against Windstream might.Edited by Rory J. Thompson