Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) : the dynamics of technology and regulation

"What Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) is going to do is start to weaken the foundation of the way we've done things for 100 years...Congress already should be discussing the next telecom bill," said Federal Communications Commission (FCC) Chairman Michael Powell in February 2004, before the United States Senate. The objective of this thesis is to study how VoIP challenges the incumbent US telecommunications act. The appearance of VoIP comes at a juncture when telecommunications system has already turned into a large-scale, complex system with multiple, competing infrastructures. VoIP, however, greatly augments the nested complexity by affording a technology that enables multiple architectures and business models for delivering the same voice (and often converged voice and data) service, while remaining agnostic to the underlying infrastructure. The VoIP-enabled architectures have very different capabilities and costs from one another. Many do not - or cannot - support social regulations such as emergency 911, wiretapping and disability access. Most exploit the economic arbitrage opportunities by evading access charges and universal service contributions.