Carlisle: VoIP jurisdiction could be settled soon

FCC Wireline Competition Bureau Chief Jeffrey Carlisle today said he expects the commission to act quickly on jurisdictional questions surrounding voice-over-IP (VoIP) calls, possibly as early as its scheduled Nov. 9 meeting.

Although the FCC and many members of Congress have expressed their beliefs that the FCC should have sole jurisdiction, no definitive rulemaking has been made to date. With oral arguments in the appeal of the Minnesota state commission case against Vonage scheduled for Nov. 17 and several other state commissions conducting VoIP proceedings, expedited FCC action on the issue would be helpful, he said.

"If we don’t move forward on that pretty soon, we run the risk of have multiple state actions and court rulings to contend with," Carlisle said during a press briefing.

Carlisle’s comments echoed those made by FCC Chairman Michael Powell yesterday during a speech delivered at the VON Conference in Boston. Establishing jurisdiction over VoIP is the "first step in getting policy pointed in the right direction."

"We cannot avoid this question any longer," Powell said. "To hold that packets flying across national and indeed international digital networks should be subject to state commission economic regulatory authority is to dumb down the Internet to match the limited vision of government officials. That would be a tragedy."

Powell mentioned Vonage in his speech, and the commission has had a Vonage jurisdictional petition pending for about a year. Carlisle said the commission has the option of making a decision on an SBC Communications petition seeking federal jurisdiction on all IP services but limiting the jurisdictional question to VoIP may be simpler.

"A narrower decision is much easier to move forward," Carlisle said.

In other items, Carlisle indicated a much-anticipated ruling that long-distance obligations could not require RBOCs to unbundle new fiber networks could be approved as early as this week and the proceeding on universal-service disbursements and ETC designations needs to be completed in February. An intercarrier-compensation proceeding could begin within the next month, which would put the commission "in a good position to [take action] in the middle of next year," he said.