When Is a Phone Call Not a Phone Call? (When ALEC Says So)

When a Pacific Gas and Electric pipeline exploded in San Bruno, CA in 2010, pundits all over the nation called out for more aggressive supervision of the energy company, so Californians needn't fear having their homes burst into fireballs.

Wildfires and windstorms resulted in long-term outages across Southern California in recent years, caused largely by aging lines and overloaded power poles. At the insistence of legislators, millions of dollars in fines have been assessed.

Which makes it really puzzling when mandates for less utility regulation start sailing through the California legislature.

Do we only care after people die or lose the ability to communicate in an emergency?

SB 1161, co-authored by State Senator Alex Padilla (D-Los Angeles) and Assemblyman Steven Bradford (D-Inglewood), has passed the CA State Senate and will come before the Assembly later this summer.

The bill proposes eliminating statewide supervision of all Internet phone service (VOIP) -- until 2020.

Doesn't affect you, you say? It affects all calls when even one party uses an IP phone service, even if the other is on a land line or wireless phone. And if affects the lines over which all telephone data travels and the reliability and safety of those wires and poles.

As big telecom corporations like AT&T, Verizon, Comcast and Time Warner rebrand themselves as VOIP providers, the ability of California to hold them to basic service guarantees and fair business practices vanishes under this proposed legislation.

You would think a bill like this would be a response to strangling and suffocating over-regulation. You would think corporations would be asked to prove how the government is hurting their businesses.

But the truth is, there is almost no regulation of Internet phone service (VOIP) being imposed. This is a preemptive strike to prevent future actions on behalf of California consumers, and state-by-state, consumers across the country.

The telecom industry is trying to dictate the terms of their own future regulation as the industry shifts to VOIP networks and make themselves exempt from requirements for telephone service to be affordable, available to everyone, safe, and reliable in an emergency.

This is not just a California issue. Senator Padilla's bill has origins in a model bill by ALEC, The right-wing American Legislative Council, where is it is called The Regulatory Modernization Act.

Similar bills have been brought to many state legislatures, passing in Georgia, Florida, Michigan, Texas, Virginia, Wisconsin, Alabama, New Hampshire, and Utah. However Kentucky, New York, Maine and New Jersey have fought and won against IP deregulation,

We ask the California Assembly and Governor Brown to stand with The Utility Ratepayers Network, Greenlining Institute, the Communication Workers of America, and Media Alliance (among many others) and throw this ALEC-inspired bill where it belongs -- in the trash heap.

 

Follow Tracy Rosenberg on Twitter: www.twitter.com/twrling

Comments

[Tracy Rosenberg]

11:23 PM on 07/04/2012

But Ledwidge, in California there is no statewide regulation on VOIP currently in place. The only action that has been taken is about maintaining sufficient back-up batteries to maintain service in an emergency, which most of us would agree is basic to the delivery of communication services. So why are you arguing for pre-emptive deregulationon carriers, large and small? Shouldn't the small carriers be pretty scared of the big ones entering the space (as they are) with little-to-no oversight to ensure basic competitive principals. AT&T and Verizon are not notorious for encouraging healthy market competition - they like the monopoly/duopoly playing field. I don't think your argument is protecting who you think you are protecting.

[Digital Redwoods]

02:03 PM on 07/04/2012

Happy Independence Day! Google says they support a free and open Internet - https://www.google.com/takeaction/ - if they really favor universal access to open internet, they will drop their support for SB1161 and join the opposition! http://californiabroadband.org/blogs/Xavier/padillas-att-backed-bill-places-californians-jeopardy

[Feargal Ledwidge]

02:21 AM on 07/04/2012

There is a different way to look at this. Many of the VOIP players are not the big mega-telcos. Many of time are much smaller operations. Companies like Vonage and Viatalk are practically microscopic dots compared to those large companies. Legislation like this allows the VoIP industry to continue to emerge and develop. Its in the same way that the lack of sales tax on the Internet allowed the Internet retailers to emerge and develop.

Who does regulation help and hurt right now? - It helps the big players (who are already regulated) and it hurts new players. 2020 sounds like a good target to aim for.

[starburst42]

03:54 PM on 07/12/2012

Ledwidge, that's apples and oranges. There's a big difference between the Vonages of the world and the companies the CPUC can regulate. The CPUC arguably now can't touch the Vonage-like companies. Those companies provide service using aps that ride the Internet. The interconnected, big VoIP providers like Comcast, AT&T and Verizon are another story. Those guys market their service as a phone service. They tell the FCC they are telecommunications companies to get the benefit of regulation. They push phone customers over to VoIP phone service telling them it is another kind of phone service. They are also lining up at the trough to receive govt. subsidies to support providing phone service in high cost areas - the FCC just voted out $2 billion for that, most going to AT&T and Verizon. In the next breath, they say it isn't telecom service, the regulators can't touch them, if their networks go out and make it impossible for people to call 911 or Vonage customers to make calls - too bad. They can't have it both ways. And legislation that does not let regulators require reliable service puts lives in jeopardy.

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