Thursday, March 10, 2005 - The Progress & Freedom Foundation
Blog  Broadband and Internet Voice: Lessons from a Mad River
The FCC's consent decree with rural telephone company Madison
River Communications has re-fueled speculation about the best
way to avoid unnecessary regulation of Internet voice and other
broadband-related services. In explaining their decision to
settle complaints that Mad River had blocked Internet voice
calls on its network, agency officials reiterated the wisdom of
avoiding regulation of this service according to the same
formula the agency has employed to minimize regulation of
broadband generally. Specifically, the FCC has attempted to
assign these services to legal classifications under the
Communications Act that are subject to relatively fewer
requirements. One example of this formula is the FCC's decision
to classify Vonage's offering as an "interstate service" that is
not subject to state jurisdiction. Another is the FCC's
classification of cable modem service as an "informatio