Iowa Stakeholders Emphasize VoIP, Retail Tarriffs in State Telecom Regulations Workshop
Iowa stakeholders remained focused on Internet Protocol-based service regulation and lowering retail tariffs, they said at an Iowa Utilities Board workshop on reforming IUB regulatory procedures. The IUB received comments in July on how to reform the state’s telecom policy. Chairwoman Elizabeth Jacobs said the commission wants to draft two pieces of legislation: One cleaning up the language of the state’s regulatory code and the other dealing with issues that could be more difficult to resolve. “A lot of the statues are outdated and we need to get rid of the outdated statues to make progress,” said IUB board member Sheila Tipton.
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VoIP services raised some concerns for stakeholders worried about the IUB’s interfering with FCC wireless regulation. VoIP technology is different because it doesn’t work without broadband, said an AT&T spokeswoman. “There’s a huge cost savings because VoIP providers can provide services across any distance,” she said. “Geography is not important due to the fundamentals of the Internet where distance is not important.”
Sprint acts as an intermediate carrier for VoIP services in Iowa, but only as an ILEC on the wireless side, said a spokesman. “Not all VoIP goes over the Internet, and technology” makes more of a difference with “market power,” he said. “We don’t need strong retail protections.” When Iowa updated its IUB legislation, the Sprint spokesman said, the rules held up “pretty well” and only “minor touch-ups” are needed to the statues. “We need an evolutionary change, not a revolutionary change,” he said. “The board had engaged in incremental legislation and everyone appears comfortable with the regulation on the retail side."
Parties urged the IUB to let the carriers deal with their interconnection agreements. “The customer does not care or know about the tech, but they want their calls to have the same quality throughout,” said a Sprint spokesman. “This can only be made possible through robust interconnection where competition can take many forms.” CenturyLink said the IUB needs to realize the major transition of the industry. Since 2000, ILECs in the state have lost 30 percent of their customers, said a CenturyLink spokesman. Forty-five percent of households get service from a local phone company in Iowa and 37 percent use a wireless service, he said.
"This is the time to focus on a new paradigm, but we need to focus on consumer protection rather than controlling the technology,” said the CenturyLink representative. Retail deregulation “should not have an effect on wholesale issues,” said a Windstream spokesman. “We need to look at state and federal issues when it comes to deregulation and how it impacts certification requirements will affect the purpose of wholesale tariffs.”