The VON Coalition disagrees with findings by commissions in Vermont,...
The VON Coalition disagrees with findings by commissions in Vermont, Wisconsin and Maine that said VoIP services like Comcast’s Digital Voice service are telecom service and subject to state regulation, Glenn Richards, the group’s executive director, said in a NARUC…
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panel late Tuesday. Betty Ann Kane, chair of the District of Columbia Public Service Commission, cited a Vermont commission order this week that said state law-based regulation of nomadic VoIP largely has been preempted by federal law but such federal preemption hasn’t attached for state law-based regulation of fixed VoIP. States like Maine, Vermont and Wisconsin have taken the advantage of what they believe is the ambiguity in the 2004 Vonage order on whether it applies to non-nomadic or fixed VoIP services, Richards said. Meanwhile, some popular voice applications today don’t have 911 capabilities, said Brian Fontes, executive director with the National Emergency Numbering Association. Some of these application developers are foreign companies and therefore aren’t subject to U.S. regulations, presenting a challenge to emergency communications, he said. There are some technical and economic challenges ahead but Internet Protocol offers great promise for a more robust 911 network, Richards said.