In what I believe to be a landmark decision, the FCC has declared ‘Pure’ VoIP, that is voice communications flowing exclusively over the Internet, to be explicitly not a phone service. This may sound like a “well duh” to a lot of us, but the FCC asserting this in explicit terms is a big deal:
“[VoIP] is in no way different than e-mail and other peer-to-peer applications blossoming on the Internet,” FCC Chairman Michael Powell said. “Such services have never been held to be telecom services.” Commissioner Michael Copps opposed the decision, and Jonathan Adelstein said he partially dissented.
This goes a long way to easing concerns about regulation with entrepreneurs and investors which should really help to invigorate investment in SIP based services.
Cheers to the FCC and cheers to Jeff Pulver for all the hard work he has put in towards achieving this ruling.
