# Presentation: 922164

## Internet Telephony: Policy Perspectives

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*Internet Telephony: Policy Perspectives*

*NTIA Internet Telephony Forum *
*William Lehr*
*MIT Internet Telephony Consortium*
*(wlehr@rpcp.mit.edu)*
*September 4, 1997*

## Presentation outline

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*Lehr, Internet Telephony: Policy Perspectives*

***Presentation outline***

- 1. What is the MIT Internet Telephony Consortium
- 2. What is Internet Telephony: ITC vision
- 3. Policy challenges

## For more info, see http://itel.mit.edu

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*Lehr, Internet Telephony: Policy Perspectives*

***MIT Internet Telephony Consortium***

- Joint industry/academic research consortium, formed August 1996
- Multidisciplinary research on issues arising from convergence of telecom and the Internet
- technical
- economic
- strategic
- policy issues
- For more info, see http://itel.mit.edu

## Internet telephony vision

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*Lehr, Internet Telephony: Policy Perspectives*

***Internet telephony vision***

- Not just “POTS over IP”, but an evolving platform for ubiquitous multimedia services.
- Infrastructure for integrated voice, video, and data
- Today, Internet runs on PSTN facilities.
- Tomorrow, Telephony runs on Internet???
- Near term, ITel forces policy debate to confront inefficient telephony regulation
- Long term, new paradigm for industry structure and public policy

## Internet telephony challenges

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*Lehr, Internet Telephony: Policy Perspectives*

***Internet telephony challenges***

- Technical
- delay, congestion, QoS, directory services
- Economic
- cost recovery, efficient pricing, industry structure
- Regulatory policy
- convergence, competition

## Regulatory policy challenges

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*Lehr, Internet Telephony: Policy Perspectives*

***Regulatory policy challenges***

- Internet: engine of technical/industry convergence
- Raises concerns for multiple policy areas:
- Telephony (common carriage, universal service)
- Broadcast Media (content, spectrum managment, cable TV)
- Intellectual Property (copyright)
- Privacy and free speech
- Antritrust and Trade: industry structure and competition
- Currently, telecom regulation in transition...
- Telco Act of 1996 (unbundling, access and univ service)
- WTO Agreement (international settlements)

## Issues during the transition....

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*Lehr, Internet Telephony: Policy Perspectives*

***Issues during the transition....***

- ISP access traffic congests local telephone networks
- local, short-term problem of PSTN configuration.
- revenue from second lines offsets cost increases
- Solution: require ISP’s to pay access charges? No!
- higher costs harm Internet growth, slow innovation.
- access charges exceed economic costs, reform needed.
- Internet access is enhanced service.
- ITel used to bypass international settlements
- international benchmarks exceed economic costs
- same issue as with interstate access, only more money

## Longer term issues.....

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*Lehr, Internet Telephony: Policy Perspectives*

***Longer term issues.....***

- Industry structure and vertical integration
- “One stop” shopping
- customer choice and switching costs?
- Bottleneck facilities?
- local loops: access lanes to information highway?
- interface to home-of-future CPE?
- directory services and domain names?
- backbone interexchange points?
- Internet technology and standards
- Open interface standards
- Intellectual property and incentives to innovate

## Longer term issues....

*9*

*Lehr, Internet Telephony: Policy Perspectives*

***Longer term issues....***

- Internet as infrastructure
- Access and common carriage?
- Universal service? (enhanced definition, subsidies)
- Interconnection?
- Internet as global infrastructure
- National vs. international regulatory authority
- content, antitrust, trade, privacy, security...