Below is the "Introduction and Summary" of the comments. A PDF of the full comments with footnotes is available here.
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Introduction and Summary
These comments are submitted in response to the Commission's request for comments on petitions urging the Commission to alter policies in response to the ongoing technological transition of voice networks. In these comments we offer our views concerning the principles and priorities that should guide the Commission's policies toward completing the IP transition on a timely basis and the anticipated retirement of the public switched telephone network (PSTN).
In recent years, the market for voice services has undergone dynamic change. This includes the emergence of cross-platform competition in local and long distance services as well as the employment of IP- and broadband-enabled technologies. Trends over the last several years reveal an ongoing migration of providers and consumers from legacy TDM networks to all-IP networks. For consumers, and for the nation as a whole, to realize the full benefit of these innovative and competitive breakthroughs, the Commission must replace its legacy monopoly approach to ensuring access to voice services with a much less regulatory approach. Otherwise, the service providers necessarily will have fewer funds available to invest in new broadband facilities as they continue to sink scarce capital into legacy facilities utilized by a dwindling number of customers.
Consumers stand to benefit from the advanced capabilities of new all-IP networks in providing voice services as against older and increasingly outdated copper-based TDM legacy switched circuit systems. Permitting carriers to focus on investing in and upgrading next-generation network technologies ultimately will improve consumer experience through technically superior services as well as prospectively reduced prices. Absent concerted action to facilitate the PSTN's retirement from its decades-old regulatory grip, consumers will continue to encounter the legacy system's drag on next-generation network investment through delayed deployment of new broadband technologies. This drag likely will delay price reductions that would otherwise result from all-IP network economic efficiencies.
A simpler and less prescriptive regulatory framework is needed to ensure that all-IP networks will thrive in an environment free from outdated and cumbersome legacy restrictions. This means adopting a more market-driven approach to ensuring universal service through an interconnected voice network with basic consumer protections. By exercising its forbearance authority, in particular, the Commission can adopt a simplified regulatory framework for ensuring access to voice services by all Americans while, at the same time, ensuring that voice providers using competing platforms have the freedom and flexibility to best serve consumers. Indeed, the Commission's forbearance authority, which thus far has been too little used, would seem to be an especially appropriate tool for the FCC to employ in facilitating the IP-transition. Likewise, the Commission can use its waiver authority to remove regulatory impediments to ensuring access to reliable voice service via all-IP networks.
The Commission should not hesitate to issue waivers and declaratory rulings clarifying the status of IP-enabled services, such as VoIP, in order to ensure the operation of a nationwide free marketplace for such services. This includes declarations that preempt state regulations where technological and other marketplace developments demonstrate the inherently interstate nature of new types of services.
An agency process for facilitating this transition to all-IP voice services should be established and earnestly pursued to ensure the timely end of the PSTN. The Commission should freely employ a series of trials, geographically targeted and consisting of varying deregulatory and consumer choice components, to assess the efficiency and effectiveness of reforms. The Commission should invoke its forbearance and waiver authorities as necessary to permit such trials to proceed on a timely basis. For instance, forbearance relief or waivers could be granted to clear away potential obstacles to all-IP network transitions posed by service discontinuance requirements, notice-of-network change regulations, carrier-of-last-resort obligations, or other unnecessary mandates. Trials can provide the Commission with valuable, real-world data that can inform broader PSTN retirement efforts as well as the composition of a new deregulatory framework for all-IP voice services.
Finally, the FCC should set a deadline for retirement of the legacy PSTN regulatory system. A PSTN sunset date should coincide with the final implementation of a new, deregulatory, market-driven framework for voice services in an all-IP world. A specific deadline will focus the efforts of the Commission and legacy voice providers and will better ensure, for the benefit of the nation's consumers, that the IP-transition and PSTN retirement process takes place in a timely manner.
