California VoIP company certification issues should receive

first filed May 10 at the CPUC detailing the meeting as well as its concerns. Currently the CPUC is engaged in “piecemeal consideration of issues that implicate the common carrier and certification status of certificated VoIP carriers in a number of application proceedings,” which is “improper, inefficient, constitutes a violation of CALTEL’s members’ due process rights, and has the potential to be harmful to competition and contrary to the public interest,” CALTEL said. The association points out that the CPUC is looking at these issues in four proceedings devoted each to a single company. California’s law barring state VoIP regulation, SB-1161, shouldn’t affect any of the CPUC’s rules and processes for certificates of public convenience and necessity (CPCNs), but that needs to be spelled out, the association said. CALTEL proposes the CPUC modify the language in one ongoing proceeding to include explicit language for addressing these concerns in a second phase. A proposed decision should include the following text, CALTEL recommended: “The Commission shall hold a workshop to examine the Commission’s regulatory obligations and duties with respect to certificated and uncertificated Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) carriers in light of the recent adoption of Senate Bill 1161. ... The assigned Administrative Law Judge (ALJ) will schedule a workshop within 90-days to consider 1) whether a registration process, in whole or in part, should be extended to uncertificated VoIP carriers in light of current market status, consumer issues and current regulatory status and 2) whether any changes should be made to the Commission’s rules and processes pertaining to issuing and maintaining CPCNs for entities that utilize VoIP or IP-enabled technologies to provide services.”