Voice-over-Internet Protocol (VoIP) provider Vonage asked the FCC...
Voice-over-Internet Protocol (VoIP) provider Vonage asked the FCC to preempt a recent ruling by the Minn. PUC that Vonage’s VoIP offering was a telephone service subject to state regulatory requirements. The company had asked the FCC to preempt the…
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PUC on the ground that Vonage was providing an information service that was not in the PUC’s jurisdiction. The PUC said Vonage must obtain a state local exchange certificate and comply with state 911 rules and other regulatory requirements imposed on local exchange providers. Vonage told the FCC that its VoIP service was an Internet information application just like e-mail, and never was designed to comply with common carrier regulation. It said compliance with some state rules, such as those governing 911 service, would be impossible for technical reasons. Vonage also said the nature of its technology made it impossible to separate intrastate and interstate traffic since there was no way of knowing the exact location of an Internet user.