VoIP Legislation
I have to admit I don’t find US political hearings particularly inspiring. I am certainly not legally trained or even overly interested in law (except maybe tax law from time to time), but there is a US hearing taking place in the next few days that has the potential for wide ranging impact on a fast growing part of our business - VoIP.
The hearing kicks off on the 20th April and is titled: "How Internet Protocol-Enabled Services Are Changing the Face of Communications: A Look at Video and Data Services" https://energycommerce.house.gov/108/Hearings/04202005hearing1483/hearing.htm#List
There are scant details yet about the aims of the hearing or even about whom will staring, but I will be keeping a close eye on this as it progresses.
Why?
Right now VoIP traffic is pretty much unrestricted in terms of legislation and monitoring, unlike the PSN (Public Switching Network) systems we use today for voice communication. These are heavily regulated in the UK and throughout a large part of the globe, generating a significant revenue stream not only for network operators but also in terms of tax revenue for government. VoIP solutions are taking hold fast across the globe threatening this revenue and there is inevitably going to come a point where government and industry will look to restrict or even control the transition from the traditional network to voice traffic over the internet.
Maybe it’s fair enough that we pay for voice data now over the PSN so we should pay for voice data over IP. The problem comes when someone tries to define exactly what voice data is - how to legally identify VoIP. It’s just another stream of data! How can VoIP data be ‘surgically’ identified by a legal statement from the IP background noise without covering a huge swathe of other data streams. What about game voice data for example using audio to talk to your team in a HL2 capture the flag game; or XBox voice data; or streaming audio from a web site; or internet TV. Let’s go one further, what about a compressed file containing audio?
That’s the big question, and why this hearing is interesting. It has the potential to give the industry a view of how the US government will handle the transition of data from today’s traditional networks to the ubiquitous IP channel. What the US decides is likely to strongly influence the rest of the globe over time.
Marcus