All Commenters Would Be OK With FCC HD Voice NOI; Views Differ on Rules
No reply opposed by comment deadline a startup nonprofit’s request that the FCC issue a notice of inquiry on making a transition to HD voice as part of the IP transition, docket 13-5 shows (http://bit.ly/1w2bIXZ). Supporters of VoIP, which commenter and NARUC General Counsel Brad Ramsay told us hasn’t been definitively classified as a telecom or information service, continued backing the NOI request. States should have a role in any transition from circuit-switched phone service that could also include HD voice, said NTCA Senior Vice President-Policy Michael Romano.
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All initial comments backed the Feb. 25 request of the Voice Communication Exchange Committee (which also uses the acronym VCXC) (CD June 25 p16; June 26 p17). Founder and VoIP pioneer Daniel Berninger told us he hopes the FCC will be a facilitator of the overall IP transition, much as the agency did leading up to the 2009 full-power TV station conversion to digital. Groups representing big telcos said they sat out the comments, but Berninger said he’s optimistic companies like AT&T and Verizon will support his goals, too.
USTelecom, which didn’t file comments, supports the industry’s nascent move to HD voice, said a spokeswoman. She and others noted that an all-IP network is needed to allow every wireline subscriber to get HD voice; a call using that standard would be guaranteed to connect with another customer in HD only if it went only through systems able to handle the higher quality in a post-TDM world. Wireline telcos aren’t now widely selling HD voice services, said the spokeswoman for USTelecom, which has members including AT&T, CenturyLink, Frontier Communications, Verizon and Windstream. ITTA, representing mid-sized telcos including some USTelecom members, declined to comment and didn’t participate in the FCC proceeding on VCXC’s petition for NOI, said Vice President-Regulatory Affairs Micah Caldwell.
The FCC shouldn’t issue rules about the IP transition, and should instead help industry come together around how the transition can be pulled off by 2018, said Berninger, who co-founded VoIP companies, including Vonage, with Jeff Pulver. That’s the deadline envisioned by some backers of the IP transition, a date some say now may be too soon. Those who said they would back the benefits of, but want guidelines for, HD voice -- which Berninger said has more than twice the sound quality as traditional wireline phone quality in terms of the range of octaves that can be heard -- tell us the IP transition and high definition as a subset of it may need a regulatory framework. (Editor’s note: That dichotomy will be the subject of an article appearing in tomorrow’s issue.)
"The opportunity to include HD voice as an objective of the IP transition owes to the new flexibility available with IP networks,” said a VCXC ex parte filing (http://bit.ly/1xTLr15) about a meeting at AT&T with FCC officials attended by telco, disabilities-rights and other officials including policy analyst Cary Hinton of the District of Columbia Public Service Commission. “Achieving interoperability through a common HD implementation represents the final challenge for industry and policymakers.” The Maryland Governor’s Office of the Deaf and Hard of Hearing views HD voice as a way to improve video relay service quality, so interpreters can better understand speakers who aren’t hearing impaired and then write the remarks on-screen, it commented (http://bit.ly/1lUMmG1). “The transition from Standard Definition” to HD “will enhance the clarity of calls being received and made by augmenting the quality of sounds being transmitted,” said the office Tuesday.
NARUC and NTCA sought a bigger role for regulators. NARUC is concerned that the FCC should definitively deem VoIP, and with it HD voice, a common-carrier telecom service and not an information service, said Ramsay and its filing (http://bit.ly/1lUMmG1). “The FCC has for years put the cart before the horse,” said the filing. “First classify the subject services” before additionally exploring rolling out HD voice or exploring the IP transition, said the group.
VCXC’s petition and backers of it like Vonage imply the FCC can modify “the Congressional scheme” of telecom regulation in service of the agency’s policy goals, said NARUC. The FCC should “play an active role in connection with any technology transition,” commented NTCA (http://bit.ly/VLFXaJ). It sought “reasonable and carefully constructed ‘rules of the road.'” Beyond “ambiguous reference to the DTV transition” or touting voluntary interconnection agreements, backers of the HD voice transition don’t show how it would affect consumers, said NTCA. “The availability of HD voice will matter little if calls never arrive at their destination,” as happens now with rural call completion problems, said the group of rural rate-of-return regulated telcos. It said an FCC inquiry on HD voice should include examining not just technical details -- as VoIP backers told us they seek -- but also regulatory frameworks to serve “core statutory principles” of universal service, consumer protection, public safety, competition and network reliability.