Powell Says He's Against Regulating VoIP
from the sounds-good dept
Despite some fears (expressed last month by former FCC chair Reed Hundt) that the FCC had already made up their mind to regulate VoIP, it certainly doesn’t sound like that from the description of today’s FCC meeting on VoIP as written up by the Washington Post. FCC Chair Michael Powell made all the right statements about why regulating VoIP at this point would probably be bad, and that the various “problems” people described in not regulating VoIP can be solved through other methods.
Comments on “Powell Says He's Against Regulating VoIP”
VoIP regulation
It would be very strange if the FCC did not totally regulate Voice over IP. Since the Internet is the last strong hold on regulation it is only a short time before all the forces of Gov. are brought foward for the sole purpose of regulating as much as possible of the Internent. I know they can’t regulate the complete Internet but those components that they can will be regulated. Here in the states its only a mater of time before taxes from states are introduced, say what you want it is comming. When Gov. keep revisiting it every year or two its comming. When will it come, my prediction is after we come out of this recovery and see unmployment drop to its equalibrium point. But as to VoIP, without regulation you can’t create monopolistic companies which the Gov. can control easier than mom and pop shops and control is the game we all play.
Re: VoIP regulation
Maybe nobody passed me the koolaid, but I don’t think “the government” is at all intent on regulating the Internet.
The House voted unanimously to extend a permanent moratorium on Internet taxes. A few Senators (former greedy governors) are holding it up. Members of Congress still get letters about “Bill 602P” — they’re not about to do it for real.
Republicans are, in general, deregulatory. Right now, they control “the government”. So I see no reason to suspect some dark conspiracy to regulate. So, to veer back on topic, there’s no reason to think Mr Powell, who just fought hard to deregulate media, isn’t going to fight just as hard to keep VOIP deregulated.