Talkin’ VoIP in Missouri

This week in Missouri, there’s lively debate (well, as lively as things get in Missouri) regarding telecom regulation. The Missouri legislature is bearing witness to the state’s public service commission and its proposed regulations for VoIP technology.

Dallas, Texas-based Institute for Policy Innovation, meanwhile, has come out against the Missouri Public Service Commission, claiming “The Commission is also splitting hairs to draw distinctions among providers – aiming to put different, heavier regulation on the facilities-based IP voice technology such as that offered by network owners, than on VoIP offered by nonfacilities-based providers such as Vonage.”

The Institute for Policy Innovation is a think tank with offices in Dallas and Washington, DC. IPI experts have testified before state legislatures across the country on “the vital importance of free-market policies in the telecom sector.”

Claim IPI researchers, “Missouri is bucking a national trend to encourage investment and innovation in new technologies.”

Earlier this month, J. Scott Christianson of the hometown Columbia Daily Tribune (which is cited here thanks to an assist from BroadbandReports.com) surely correctly opined that the telecom bill “has something in it for every large telecommunications company: reducing public oversight, eliminating local control, cherry-picking high-profit customers and protection from prying public auditors. It would be wonderful - if it weren’t such a complete betrayal of the public trust…”

Karl (really?) of BroadbandReports.com kicks in: “broadband on a stick,” a.k.a. “support our policies or we won’t deploy,” has long been an effective lobbying tactic.”

Word.