In response to the FCC’s decision earlier this week to reject its phone-to-phone VoIP petition, AT&T expressed disappointment that the Commission chose “to protect the monopoly revenues of the Bell companies at the expense of consumers everywhere.”
In a statement, Jim Cicconi, AT&T general counsel, said: “Rather than leave a legacy that promotes technology and innovation, this FCC will be remembered as the Commission that took the first steps to regulate the Internet despite its public statements to the contrary. The order will give real pause to any carrier that owns an IP network or otherwise innovates in reliance on FCC policies that today prove inconstant. It also raises serious questions about the consistency of the FCC’s own statements and positions on the Internet and on investment in new technology.”http://www.att.com
- The FCC ruled against AT&T in a case over whether telephone calls placed over the PSTN, converted to IP, transmitted over an IP backbone, and then terminated on the PSTN should be subject to access charges.
- The FCC found this type of phone-to-phone IP telephony “lacks the characteristics of an information service and bears the characteristics of a telecommunications service.” In the ruling, the FCC also noted that it sees “no benefit in promoting one party’s use of a specific technology to engage in arbitrage at the cost of what other parties are entitled to under the statute and our rules, particularly where, based on the record before us, end users have received no benefit in terms of additional functionality or reduced prices.”