Yesterday, FCC has a hearing on FWD appeal and they rule 3-2 in favour of FWD! In other words, IP-to-IP telephony is now classified as “information service” not “telecommunication service”. This means FWD and other like it, will not be subjected to telecom regulations, taxes, univeral services or E911 requirements etc etc. This is a big win!
On the other hand, I rather we overhaul the outdated “information services” vs “telecommunication service” classification. What we have here is like pointing to something that looks like a duck, quack like a duck and we decide to call it “a chicken”.
We need to fix the rule!
Yes yes, I know fixing the rule involve changing the Telecommunication Act. It is not going to be easy and would take years. Michael Powell didn’t called this “the stuff I’m excited and challenged by…What this is going to do is start weaken the foundations of the way we’ve done things for 100 years!” for no reasons :-)
