The state of Ohio has sued the Federal Communications Commission over a two-month-old order that took away state authority to regulate Internet telephony. Ohio said the commission overstepped its bounds by calling Net phones closer to interstate e-mail than in-state telephony.
The lawsuit makes Ohio the second state after California to challenge the FCC order, and some published reports indicate Minnesota and New York are likely to do likewise.
Ohio officials said after the filing that as many as 86 Internet phone companies want to do business in the Buckeye State but nobody knows how many are doing it now thanks to the lack of regulation. "We're looking to classify them as a telephone service," Public Utilities Commission of Ohio spokeswoman Shana Eisenstein told reporters after the filing, which the state made with the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.
She also questioned whether Internet phone services would or would not be tied to emergency lines, as well as challenging that Net phone services are exempt from the PUC Ohio’s billing requirements, disconnect and complaint procedures, and service and repair standards.
But Washington-based communications attorney Ross Buntrock – whose clients include Internet telephony operators – told reporters the states haven’t yet convinced the FCC that their consumer protection would be obstructed, and that the states challenging the FCC order aren’t likely to succeed.
"The FCC has jurisdiction because [Internet telephony] is interstate in nature," he was quoted as saying. "There is very little that stays within a state's borders. I think the state commissions will have an uphill battle in court."
The FCC had ruled Internet telephony is a “border busting” technology. "To subject such a global network to disparate local regulatory treatment… would be to destroy the very qualities that embody the technological marvel that is the Internet," FCC chairman Michael Powell said in the ruling.
The company that won the ruling, Vonage, has said state regulation could inflate consumer costs for Internet calls.
