Time Warner gets OK from FCC

Score one for Time Warner Cable and other internet telephony wholesalers: The Federal Communications Commission, in the matter of Time Warner Cable Request for Declaratory Ruling that Competitive Local Exchange Carriers May Obtain Interconnection Under Section 251 of the Communications Act of 1934, as Amended, to Provide Wholesale Telecommunications Services to VoIP Providers, a.k.a. WC Docket No. 06-55 (and you wonder why federal court decisions take so long), declared that the Nebraska and South Carolina state regulations boards misinterpreted extant federal law in preventing Time Warner from introducing VoIP service in those states.

Information Week online quoted FCC chairman Kevin J. Martin as describing the decision in most positive terms: “By increasing competition in the telephone sector, this action encourages the deployment of broadband facilities and ensures that consumers in all areas of the country reap the benefits of competition in the form of lower prices, innovative services and more choice.”

Exactly one year before the final decision – March 1, 2006 – Time Warner Cable requested the FCC to “declare that wholesale telecommunications carriers are entitled to interconnect and exchange traffic with incumbent local exchange carriers when providing services to other service providers.”

Trade associations argued to the FCC that finding in favor of Time Warner Cable would create an “unequal regulatory structure” in which VoIP providers have an unfair advantage over telecoms, but VoIP industry voices pretty much unanimously applauded the ruling.

Read one opinion over at the classic Geek.com: “The great thing about this order is that it clears up any confusion regarding whether VoIP services are also protected in the Communication Act of 1934. It also paves the way for VoIP services to deploy their services faster without all the red tape. The FCC, after all, has the final say when it comes to interpreting how the Communications Act of 1934 applies here.”

Meanwhile, Broadcast Engineering wrote that “The decision breaks down of one of the last barriers preventing VoIP to fully compete with traditional phone carriers.” ZDNet had VON Coalition stating the ruling was “broadly beneficial to the entire VoIP industry.”

And as far as Australia did industry press record news of the verdict, with Oz’ VoIP News stating that “The decision is seen as a glimmer of hope to Net neutrality advocates as the ruling seems to deny a carrier's right to discriminate by blocking only certain types of traffic - in this instance VoIP traffic.”

Like it or not, VoIP has again become a stronger force in America. More traditional telecoms, it seems, can only hope the future moves a bit more slowly.