A quick extract on a recent Pulver email on VoIP:
* If IP voice services are to be regulated, will it be at
the European or national level? Does it matter?
* When should IP voice services be classified as PATS [publicly available telephone services], and why?
* Can public services — such as access to emergency services on
VoIP — be assured in the absence of regulation?
Oh my. We’re stuck in a situation where the circuit-switched mentality still controls our vocabulary and thoughts. Every part of the application value chain is separable. There’s more than just application service and bit haulage. You have to look at all the individual parts and decide whether to regulate.
In this case, the concept of regulating VoIP is meaningless. Are you going to regulate voice chat embedded in multiplayer games? I don’t think so. Are you even going to be able to define VoIP? Detect VoIP traffic? Nope. So the bit that’s left to regulate is the namespace. The digital identity made from telephone number digits.
You can control the issuance of telephone numbers. By definition, you need a central authority to state whether a particular number is already issued and to whom. Centralized things are amenable to definition, detection and regulation. If IP-based voice services want to hook into telephone numbers, then regulate that interface. But don’t regulate a service you can’t even define.
Even better, moving the regulatory focus to the identity sphere, you aren’t inhibiting competition and innovation. Anyone can invent a new namespace and stick up a directory. Namespaces are not a scarce resource being artificially rationed.
You can regulate PSTN-alike VoIP services where there is an identifiable service provider. But regulating VoIP as a class is like regulating anger or success. It’s an ether you’ll never put back into a bottle.
UPDATE: For those interested on how language regulates thought, read the works of Wittgenstein. Then please report back here, as I’m too lazy to read it all myself…
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