DALLAS, TX: In comments filed today with the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), experts from the Institute for Policy Innovation (IPI) urged the agency to help speed the transition from the legacy public switched telephone network (PSTN) to IP-based networks by reforming archaic regulations and especially through proposed test-case migrations onto IP networks.
Giovanetti and Cleland encouraged the FCC to embrace the proposal to begin testing a migration from PSTN to IP networks in a number of geographically accommodating locations.
“We have seen the future, and it is not circuit switched,” said IPI president Tom Giovanetti and IPI Policy Counsel Bartlett D. Cleland in the comments.
Infrastructure investment is among the most critical and long-lasting factors in a growing economy, and policies that encourage investment in public infrastructure should be a priority, said Giovanetti and Cleland. Forcing companies to maintain archaic PSTN technology because of outdated legacy regulations is not only a gross misallocation of investment dollars but is actively harmful to the economic interests of the nation.
“A proposal made by the largest capital investor in the U.S. economy should be taken seriously, and to not take this step would be a negative sign to the capital markets and to the companies themselves,” they said.
Giovanetti and Cleland emphasized that while the market is actively moving toward IP networks, federal cooperation is still necessary, and urged the FCC to help facilitate the transition from circuit switched to IP networks in every possible, including to:
- Commit that outdated regulations designed for the circuit switched network should not migrate to broadband, IP based networks.
- Designate all IP services as inherently interstate, and
- Mandate that states update their universal service (USF) and carrier of last resort (COLR) requirements to recognize that there remain very few markets where competition does not exist or where consumers do not have access to communications services without USF support.
The Institute for Policy Innovation (IPI) is an independent, nonprofit public policy organization based in Dallas, Texas. IPI experts are available for interview by contacting Erin Humiston at (972) 874-5139, or erin@ipi.org.