IPcentral Weblog
  The DACA Blog

Tuesday, December 2, 2003

 
What Methinks of the Metaphysics of VoIP
(previous | next)
 

Well, talk of VoIP is all the rage this week, what with the FCC conducting its VoIP Forum to consider how VoIP, or Voice Over the Internet, should be classified, regulated, thwarted, promoted, or whatever. It's VoIP week. Check out the piece in today's WSJ. And I don't mean to belittle VoIP one byte--oops, I mean bit--because it is has the potential to render even less relevant the existing legacy regulatory paradigms.

But to metaphysics. My Merriam Webster's Collegiate Dictionary defines "metaphysical" at the very top of page 731 as: (1) "of or relating to the transcendent or to the reality beyond what is perceptible to the senses"; (2) "supernatural"; or (3) "highly abstract or abstruse". Now, I don't mean to imply, of course, that VoIP service itself, in its various forms, is not perceptible to the senses, or that it is supernatural or abstruse. To the contrary. In many ways that are important in thinking about whether VoIP ought to be regulated and how, it is, or is fast becoming, much like what, in the pre-Internet Age, we use to call POTS, or plain 'ol telephone service. To coin a phrase, it is as real as reaching out to touch someone.

What I mean to say about metaphysics and VoIP is this: The discussion at the FCC and before the state regulatory commissions about whether VoIP service, or various VoIP services, are "information services" or "telecommunications services" under the definitions contained in the Communications Act will surely be metaphysical in the dictionary sense of the word. In arguing for or against a particular regulatory classification, with whatever regulatory consequences may attend, there will be much talk about the various shapes for the Customer Premises Equipment used (does it look like a phone or a computer or something in-between?), about what names we call the CPE (suppose we call what looks like a phone a computer), about even the name VoIP providers give themselves (doesn't one of the leading providers advertise itself "the broadband telephone company"?), and especially about the genetic heritage or parentage of the provider (did people use to call it the "local telephone company" and did it really use to be the local phone company?).

If this discussion isn't metaphysical, then I'm not a philosopher, but just an 'ol regulatory lawyer turned think-tanker. But I do recall the decade-long war regarding the classification of "protocol conversion" --not irrelevant to VoIP service--during the '80s. Back then the operative regulatory classifications were "basic" and "enhanced" services under Computer II, and today's "telecommunications" and "information" service definitions are for all intents and purposes just the same.

What's a regulatory philosopher to do? Well, my colleague Ray Gifford is right, of course, that there is no sound rationale for regulation of VoIP by federal or state economic administrative regulators. See his December 1 post below. Methinks, however, you may need to brush up on your metaphysics, maybe, say, with Aristotle, to follow the fight in the regulatory arenas. At the same time we can all pray the regulators stifle the urge to bring VoIP into the regulatory ambit.

BTW, I promise not to use "methinks" for a long, long time. But would you believe it is the very last word on page 731 of my Webster's, so, dictionary-style, across the top of the page you find: "metaphysic-methinks". I couldn't resist!

posted by Randolph May @ 4:30 PM | General

Share |

Link to this Entry | Printer-Friendly

Post a Comment:





 
Blog Main
RSS Feed  
Recent Posts
  EFF-PFF Amicus Brief in Schwarzenegger v. EMA Supreme Court Videogame Violence Case
New OECD Study Finds That Improved IPR Protections Benefit Developing Countries
Hubris, Cowardice, File-sharing, and TechDirt
iPhones, DRM, and Doom-Mongers
"Rogue Archivist" Carl Malamud On How to Fix Gov2.0
Coping with Information Overload: Thoughts on Hamlet's BlackBerry by William Powers
How Many Times Has Michael "Dr. Doom" Copps Forecast an Internet Apocalypse?
Google / Verizon Proposal May Be Important Compromise, But Regulatory Trajectory Concerns Many
Two Schools of Internet Pessimism
GAO: Wireless Prices Plummeting; Public Knowledge: We Must Regulate!
Archives by Month
  September 2010
August 2010
July 2010
June 2010
  - (see all)
Archives by Topic
  - A La Carte
- Add category
- Advertising & Marketing
- Antitrust & Competition Policy
- Appleplectics
- Books & Book Reviews
- Broadband
- Cable
- Campaign Finance Law
- Capitalism
- Capitol Hill
- China
- Commons
- Communications
- Copyright
- Cutting the Video Cord
- Cyber-Security
- DACA
- Digital Americas
- Digital Europe
- Digital Europe 2006
- Digital TV
- E-commerce
- e-Government & Transparency
- Economics
- Education
- Electricity
- Energy
- Events
- Exaflood
- Free Speech
- Gambling
- General
- Generic Rant
- Global Innovation
- Googlephobia
- Googlephobia
- Human Capital
- Innovation
- Intermediary Deputization & Section 230
- Internet
- Internet Governance
- Internet TV
- Interoperability
- IP
- Local Franchising
- Mass Media
- Media Regulation
- Monetary Policy
- Municipal Ownership
- Net Neutrality
- Neutrality
- Non-PFF Podcasts
- Ongoing Series
- Online Safety & Parental Controls
- Open Source
- PFF
- PFF Podcasts
- Philosophy / Cyber-Libertarianism
- Privacy
- Privacy Solutions
- Regulation
- Search
- Security
- Software
- Space
- Spectrum
- Sports
- State Policy
- Supreme Court
- Taxes
- The FCC
- The FTC
- The News Frontier
- Think Tanks
- Trade
- Trademark
- Universal Service
- Video Games & Virtual Worlds
- VoIP
- What We're Reading
- Wireless
- Wireline
Archives by Author
PFF Blogosphere Archives
We welcome comments by email - look for a link to the author's email address in the byline of each post. Please let us know if we may publish your remarks.
 










The Progress & Freedom Foundation