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[December 01, 2003] VON Coalition and Diverse Industry Leaders Call on FCC For Regulatory Restraint Tom Evslin, chairman and CEO of ITXC Corp and chairman of the Voice on the Net (VON) Coalition Policy Committee, today urged the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to affirm its policy of regulatory forbearance toward Voice over IP (VoIP).In comments before the FCC's VoIP Forum in Washington, Evslin not only represented the views of the VON Coalition but also a broad industry group of VoIP leaders, including 8x8, AT&T Consumer Services, BroadSoft, Callipso, dialpad, iBasis, Intel, ITXC, PointOne, PingTone, pulver.com/FWD, Telic, and Vonage. "The Internet has changed almost every facet of communication and much of commerce," said Evslin. "The explosion of new Internet applications and services has only been possible because the FCC and most other regulatory bodies have practiced sound regulatory forbearance. Everywhere I travel, I hear regulators cite the U.S. example in this area and the fact that we practice what we preach." Evslin's remarks were part of a day-long forum arranged by the FCC to kick off its proceeding on Voice over Internet Protocol, expected early next year. The issue has been a lightning rod for debate in recent months, as several states have attempted to regulate the new technology as a traditional telephone service. Last month, a federal judge in Minnesota overturned the state's attempt to regulate VoIP service, ruling that treating VoIP as a telecommunications service is “not permissible because of the recognizable congressional intent to leave the Internet and information services largely unregulated.” VoIP not only differs from telecommunication services by definition and regulatory classification but also by the very nature of the technology. TCP/IP is designed for networks to be open to use by a multitude of service and application providers whereas circuit-switched voice networks, like the public switched telephone network, are much more restricted. Unlike circuit-switched networks that were designed to provide voice, IP is the basis for almost every new data application -- including voice applications. IP networks, especially the Internet, allow innovation at the open edge; circuit switch networks allow innovation at the core. Not surprisingly, innovations in telecommunications lately have been on IP and not circuit-switched networks. |