VoIP Firm to Seek Court Stay of FCC Nov. 911 Deadline
SANTA CLARA, Cal.-- The U.S. Court of Appeals, D.C., will be asked, probably next week, to stay FCC 911 requirements for VoIP service, said CEO Jason Talley of Nuvio, among providers challenging the order. Nuvio will ask the court to stay the entire order -- though the firm has been hewing to a mandate that it notify customers of emergency calling limitations and seek their acknowledgments. The Nov. 28 deadline for E-911 looms as the big problem, Talley told us after a presentation Wed. to ISPCon here. A stay would give Congress a chance to intervene, he said.
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The FCC demands are impossible for nomadic VoIP services such as Vonage’s and those offered by ISPs to meet in less than 2-3 years, Talley said. As matters stand, “November 28 we're going to have kind of a day of reckoning with the FCC” over whether subscribers without 911 must be cut off, he said. Nuvio is covered for 60-70% of the U.S., but that means the order could “displace” half the firm’s customers, Talley said. Providers Lingo and ITC DeltaCom are in the same jam, he said.
The “infrastructure doesn’t exist” for VoIP providers to tie into legacy 911 systems, Talley said. Further, incumbent telcos essentially control 911, and the FCC didn’t require them to help VoIP providers plug in, he said. “We're sure they'll be cooperative and use best efforts to help,” Talley said facetiously.
Large cable outfits such as Charter, Comcast and Time Warner won FCC delays on 911 acknowledgment deadlines after it sank in that they applied to those firms, Talley said. But since they offer fixed rather than nomadic telephony, those firms can make the Nov. deadline to provide emergency service and have no incentive to seek postponement of that, he said.
The FCC regulates VoIP based on semblances to switched telephony -- the “walks like a duck” theory -- which Talley called “short-sighted” and inhibitive of innovation. But the 18 months leeway the FCC gave providers on CALEA compliance “is probably somewhat reasonable,” he said, and distant enough that “it’s not high on our priority list” at Nuvio.
His firm has had problems with ISPs blocking ports to snarl VoIP service, and they continue, Talley said, without naming names. They cite interoperability problems or network degradation, he said, indicating he deems these pretexts. The FCC’s net neutrality principles sound good but don’t “really have any teeth,” Talley said. The Commission is in a tough position disclaiming Title I ancillary power to address the problem when the Supreme Court decided otherwise in Brand X, he said. The FCC’s direction will become clearer only when a shorthanded Commission again has 5 members, Talley said.
Eventually, the Commission will impose charges for VoIP calls terminated on the PSTN, Talley said. His company has taken the cautious approach of paying access charges on all its calls, at the interstate rate it believes represents its maximum possible liability, he said. “It’s safer that way” than allowing a likely obligation to keep building, Talley said, but “it’s also a lot more expensive” short term.