State regulators want to ensure that the federal government recognizes consumers...

p5). The task force will “examine whether the Association’s existing positions and resources need to be updated to keep up with changes in the telecommunications and wireless sector,” NARUC said Monday (http://xrl.us/bn2i8b). The group will revise the 2005 NARUC white paper “Federalism and Telecom” to include a framework for the states’ roles and interactions with the FCC and other federal bodies as well as “an updated negotiating framework” on federal telecom law and “principles to evaluate State-level telecommunications legislation,” NARUC said. Incoming President Phil Jones spoke in a statement of the great technological changes since 2005 regarding VoIP, smartphones and the increased fraction of Americans cutting their landline phone cord. “As State regulators, we must make sure consumers are not left behind,” Commissioner Orjiakor Isiogu, chair of the new task force, said in a statement. Support staff includes General Counsel Brad Ramsay, Legislative Director-Telecom Brian O'Hara and National Regulatory Research Institute Telecommunications Principal Sherry Lichtenberg, according to NARUC. The group will meet in person and over the phone “as much as necessary” and strive to create and release its revised white paper by next November, NARUC said. The 2005 paper offered what it deemed “pragmatic” examination of how states should play a role: “...decisions about jurisdiction and oversight should be linked not to the particular technology used, but to the salient features of a particular service, such as whether it is competitive and how consumers and small businesses depend on it” (http://xrl.us/bn2i7z).