People lack traditional consumer protections when using new Internet Protocol-based...
People lack traditional consumer protections when using new Internet Protocol-based technology, said Harold Feld, senior vice president of Public Knowledge, on the Institute for Local Self-Reliance’s Community Broadband Bits podcast (http://xrl.us/bn3raz). The rollout of LTE is making the change even…
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more significant, he added. “We're moving to a world where everything’s going to be IP,” he said Tuesday, saying the U.S. lacks traditional “social policies” under the new technology. People “need to be very conscious about all the things we've taken for granted,” Feld said. AT&T’s push for IP makes sense economically for the company, said Feld. “I want competition but I don’t want competition that leaves people behind,” he said. “I don’t want us to be the first industrialized country to actually step back from nearly 100 percent penetration on voice service.” He called for “some basic rules of the road” in the new telecom world and a need to “look out for everybody,” citing concerns about 911 and last-resort rural customers. AT&T has disputed these consumer fears thus far: “One of the greatest misconceptions is that customers are going to be ‘left behind’ in this [IP] transition,” Senior Executive Vice President James Cicconi told state regulators in November at their Baltimore meeting, according to his prepared keynote remarks. The telco will be “bringing next-generation IP voice and broadband services to nearly all customer locations in our service area, and, indeed, virtually everyone nationwide,” he said.