IIA To Educate Congress, Others on Economic VoIP Issues

Advocating a hands-off regulatory approach to VoIP, the Alliance will educate members of Congress, state govts. and the industry, they said. The IIA doesn’t plan to host its own events in the near future, but its leaders -- Bruce Mehlman, former Bush Administration Asst. Secy. of Commerce-Technology Policy, and Larry Irving, former Clinton Administration NTIA dir. -- will participate in many VoIP conferences, such as the VON Conference in Boston Oct. 17-21.

The IIA describes itself as a non-lobbying organization, but Mehlman told us he expected “lobbying will be present next Congressional session,” when Congress is expected to take up VoIP issues. Without providing any details, he said the IIA was funded by its members, which include AT&T, CapNet, CompTel/Ascent, Covad, the ITAA and Pulver.com, among others. He said while the Alliance membership was represented by the competitive community at this time, he was “hopeful we'll work in a cross-section with both competitors and the incumbents.”

While admitting there was almost a consensus among industry and regulators that there should be minimal regulation applied to VoIP, the IIA plans to get involved in debates on jurisdictional issues, as well as intercarrier compensation and universal service, its leaders said. Irving said the Alliance disagreed with N.Y. and Minn., which he said were taking “slightly different viewpoints with regards to the right regulatory model than… an average VoIP provider would have,” especially on the jurisdictional issue. He said the prospective that he shared with Mehlman was “do no harm… We believe that it’s better to avoid regulating, avoid layering additional costs on this system, particularly when regulatory uncertainty can have an enormous affect on… the ability to deploy technology and compete in this marketplace.”

Access charges and universal service contribution are issues the IIA will look at “closely… in the immediate future,” Irving said. “We have a universal service system that… is broken,” he said. While stressing the IIA didn’t oppose the universal service subsidy system, he said “we believe it’s important that we fix universal service first before” applying it to new technologies, such as VoIP. He said technologies such as broadband over powerline and Wi-Max in combination with VoIP could help “completely reform that system” by offering “lower price, [giving] more choice and [providing] broadband to more Americans, as well as [providing] telephone service to more Americans.” Mehlman said universal service had been “a national priority for a long time and clearly will remain one for a while. But we do believe we should fix [it] first before extending it to VoIP… New technologies actually help meet the goals of the universal service program at a lower cost and greater benefits to those who benefit from this system.”

As Congress is expected to address the USF issue as related to broadband next year, Irving said it probably wouldn’t become “a partisan issue.” He said historically, telecom issues “were almost never, with minor exceptions, broken down along the partisan line. It is much more economic and geographic, and I don’t expect it to be different this time.” The access charge regime will be another area in which the Alliance will be “very engaged,” Mehlman said. He said that system was “not based on actual economics, but much more on history. And its inefficiencies, if extended to [VoIP], will hinder the growth of voice over the Internet and hinder innovation within IP-enabled services.”