FCC to begin weighing Internet-telephony rules

[webmaster]

Quote:

WASHINGTON, Feb 5 (Reuters) - The Federal Communications Commission said on Thursday it plans to begin determining what regulations, if any, should apply to telephone calls that travel over the Internet. The FCC said it will discuss a formal inquiry into the fast-growing technology at its regularly scheduled meeting next week. "Voice over Internet Protocol," or VoIP, promises to dramatically cut phone bills by transporting voice traffic in digital packets over the Internet, rather than the traditional switched telephone network.

 http://finance.lycos.com/qc/news/story.aspx?story=40456873 

I hope Janet incident won't get in away for Michael Powell

I've been using  http://www.hermesphone.com/  for international calls. They do use Voice Over IP (VoIP). Quality is outstanding.
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[digger]

I hope that eventually PC to PC calls (or the equivalent in a smaller device) will free us from the restrictions of the telephone systems and companies.

They can regulate the internet<->phone system interface all they want, but if they muck around with internet-only calls, they will have a lot of problems.

[webmaster]

follow up on the subject

Quote:

5:46 PM EST Thurs., Feb. 12, 2004 The Federal Communications Commission took a baby step forward in Voice over Internet Protocol regulation today, by ruling that the Free World Dialup service was not subject to traditional voice-service regulations. While proponents of VoIP were quick to hail the decision as a move toward keeping the technology free of regulation, FCC chairman Michael Powell and other commissioners made it clear that more-robust VoIP services that connect to the circuit-switched voice networks may be subject to the regulations and fees imposed on existing voice services.

 http://www.crn.com/sections/BreakingNews/d...leID=47921 
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[waltky]

Public airwaves to the highest bidder???

FCC to auction off rights to airwaves
8/8/2006 — The government is auctioning off rights to the largest chunk ever of mobile-phone-friendly airwaves.

The auction, being conducted Wednesday by the Federal Communications Commission, may bring in as much as $15 billion to the U.S. Treasury and lead to an expansion of advanced services for mobile wireless customers, like super-fast internet access.

Already, the auction has brought in $4.3 billion from 168 bidders who made payments simply to qualify for participation. They are competing for the right to use portions of the radio spectrum — a publicly owned, extremely valuable highway in the sky that allows sound, data and pictures to be transmitted from one place to another.

The FCC is responsible for making sure users are not interfering with one another's signals and that they use the spectrum in the public interest. The auction, to be conducted via telephone and online, may go on for weeks.

Companies will be bidding for 1,122 licenses to use the spectrum, good for an initial term of 15 years.

While it is impossible to say who the big winners in the auction will be, the FCC's qualification process, which requires bidders to provide money up front depending on how many licenses they plan to bid on, provides a list of front-runners.

The top qualifier is Wireless DBS, an alliance that includes two competing direct broadcast satellite providers: EchoStar and the DirecTV. The bidders paid $972.5 million.

Second was SpectrumCo, a consortium of Comcast, Time Warner, Sprint Nextel, Cox Communications and Bright House Networks, with $637.7 million. Third was T-Mobile, at $583.5 million. T-Mobile is expected to be among the most aggressive bidders.

 MORE 
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[blsJason]

waltky wrote:

Public airwaves to the highest bidder???

They've done this for years, on everything from cellular phone bandwidth to radio station licenses. There's more on the FCC's website  here .
It wouldn't surprise me at all if the current administration is going 'great, let's rack up the proverbial credit card even more since we have all this supposedly extra revenue!'
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