FCC Says AT&T Must Pay Access Charges

The FCC on Wednesday said when AT&T Corp. converts a standard phone call into IP over its long distance network, it still must pay local phone companies access fees and adhere to other traditional rules, such as subsidizing a government fund to serve rural areas.

AT&T had asked the FCC to declare that phone calls riding over a long-distance IP network were not subject to telecommunications rules because it a VoIP service. FCC commissioners disagreed.

In a statement yesterday, Powell said the service AT&T wanted to be deregulated is clearly not VoIP.

“In fact, the consumer receives the same plain old telephone service,” Powell said in a statement. “To allow a carrier to avoid regulatory obligations simply by dropping a little IP in the network would merely sanction regulatory arbitrage and would collapse the universal service system virtually overnight.”

The FCC still has not decided how to regulate companies, such as Vonage Holdings Corp., that provide consumers with a broadband connection Internet phone service. The calls ride over the Internet, but they frequently touch the heavily regulated legacy network controlled by local phone companies. Earlier this year, the FCC said Internet calls that completely circumvent the traditional phone network are not subject to telecom rules.

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