Last night the California Public Utilities Commission gave up its attempts to regulate VoIP in the state, formally saying that the FCC is in charge.
While consumer watchdog groups think this will be the end of regulation as they know it of phone service, what this really means is the first step towards a national approach to telecommunications. That means standards, consistency and uniformity.
While the watchdog groups are valuable, their understanding of how technology can benefit and is often applied is based more on society of today, a desire to protect those on fixed incomes and many times simply oriented to restrict change except in areas of price. The PUC in stepping away basically said they have better things to do and they should not get in the way of VoIP here in CA.