Sprucing up the Telecommunications Act of 1996

By Tim Greene, NetworkWorld.com, 07/29/05

There's been a lot of complaints about the Telecommunications Act of 1996 - it's too easy on incumbent carriers, it's too easy on startup competitive carriers - and it's too hard on both.

A proposed federal law would revamp the act and address a slew of things that weren't an issue nine years ago, one of them being VoIP. The legislation would bar network service providers from blocking VoIP traffic running over their wires.

This is a concern of providers that sell IP voice service by routing customer VoIP packets to other IP networks or to the public switched phone network, but who require the customer to provide their own broadband IP connection to the Internet.

The proposal would also allow video providers to offer services without going through the town-by-town approval process that cable TV providers do. This would clearly benefit the incumbent local carriers by making it simpler and less costly to use their existing or upgraded networks to supply entertainment to customers.

These are issues that need to be addressed, and the proposal is just one presented by one senator, but it is important enough that it will be debated and modified over the next legislative session. Stay tuned.

Back to Convergence / VoIP Notes

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