While many states are getting it right, Missouri is getting it wrong -- instead of moving to deregulate old technologies that have no need for the competition-squelching, price-hiking supervision, the state’s public service commission is moving to regulate new technologies harming advances in technology, service to customers, and state competition in the process.
The prime example of this upside-down governance is a claim by the commission’s telecommunications division that an Internet voice product being offered by Comcast should be regulated just as if it were a conventional phone company such as at&t.
The Federal Communications Commission responded to a petition by Vonage with a declaration that state regulation of its Internet voice product was pre-empted by federal authority. The Missouri regulators, in a shining example of regulatory hair-splitting to preserve regulatory jurisdiction, contend that the Vonage product was “nomadic” (an application run over the Internet) while the Comcast version is “fixed” (lines buried in the ground) and that hence they can regulate fixed Internet voice products. For purposes of regulation, this difference makes no difference.
And in today’s telecommunications world there are many technologies competing for the delivery of two-way voice communication. The less regulation, the more consumer choice there will be, and the lower consumer prices will drop.
Why would Missouri’s public service commission want to tell the investing world that it is determined to stifle new infrastructure and resolved to slow down new products and services to end-user consumers?
If Missouri wants to be competitive in the communications market and to entice new and technologically advanced infrastructure, the state should relax regulation rather than increase it. A good place to start heading in the right direction would be on Internet voice products. Missouri now has the opportunity to add marketplace power alongside historic mule power in state leadership history, but will it?