It looks like some states want to write legislation that will slow down the deployment and acceptance of VoIP.
States Righters have been around for as long as states have existed in the Union. The Goevrnment when writing the constitution granted them powers to govern themselves, largely out of the fact that before the Revolutionary War the power was ruling from England.
Now, those powers to govern will come at odds with the FCC and its desire to adopt the motto, the government that governs best, governs least by letting the work be done by others.
Self regulation of emerging industries has always been favored. The time has come for the VoIP players to sit down and come up with some self regulating standards, not just technical. While it’s great to hear about SIP bakeoffs, Interoperability Testing and the IETF’s interworking function so calls can go between H.323 and SIP, or MGCP Gateways to PSTN, the real battle is with the regulators.
If the major players such as COX, Level3, Vonage and AT&T could sit down with emerging players and come up with some common regulation standards too, the states would have to slow down and not react as they are from the pressures being applied by the RBOCs, who are only doing this to stave off the inevitable before they are ready.