The Vermont Supreme Court ruled that the Vermont...
The Vermont Supreme Court ruled that the Vermont Public Service Board should revisit the question of interconnected VoIP classification and jurisdiction. The Vermont board had previously ruled that interconnected VoIP is a telecom service rather than information, a question still…
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debated on the federal level, and argued that state regulation of VoIP isn’t preempted by federal law due to the ability to divide interstate and intrastate traffic. Comcast appealed the regulators’ decision. The court agreed with its appeal, which said the state regulators “erred in not addressing whether interconnected fixed VoIP is an information service or telecommunications service under federal law because, according to Comcast, VoIP is an information service and therefore any regulation is preempted by federal law,” according to the Friday ruling. The court remanded for further proceedings by the regulators on the question and declined to issue a judgment on the distinction itself. “We disagree with Comcast that the federal designation of VoIP as an information service would necessarily result in express preemption of all state regulation,” the court said of what it deemed the regulators’ unanswered question. “At a basic level, if VoIP is an information service then the result is that the regulations in Title II of the Telecom Act do not apply. … Information services are not wholly exempt from regulation, and state regulations are preempted only to the extent they conflict with federal law or policy.” Several state legislatures around the country have passed laws in recent years and introduced bills in 2013 to prevent state regulators from asserting authority over VoIP and Internet Protocol-enabled services (CD April 1 p7).