FCC Chmn. Powell said it was necessary to ‘rethink’ the social go...

San Diego Telecom Council Tues. in San Diego, he said the first consideration was the program’s goal: “The purpose of the universal service program is… to get consumers ubiquity and affordability of services… If that goal is achieved you don’t need any money. You don’t need a govt. program just because it’s cool to have one.” Powell said he was “intrigued” by companies like Vonage that offered unlimited local and long distance calling for $35 monthly: “That is a better price proposition than a universal service program ever produced in a hundred years.” Powell said while consumers had to pay additional charges for the universal service program, “every technological innovation is creating more affordable alternatives for me without any of that help.” He said while the main goal remained to ensure that “every American should get access to the services in the digital revolution… you got to look at whether there is a new way to make sure they” do. Powell said the Commission would ensure that the universal service was protected during a transitional period, “but if every American tomorrow has voice over IP for 30 bucks then what’s the fund for? That’s not to say we won’t need it, we might still want it. But I challenge people to stop talking about ‘look what they do to the fund.’ Forget the fund.” He expressed concern that consumers ended up paying for the fund: “I am sure you would like to see that line on your bill to go away. There is a cost to consumers of the fund. So if you had VoIP and none of those charges, you'd have a pretty good deal.” Powell said with many questions remained unanswered, “we have a lot of learning to do before we start making decisions” on VoIP. He said there were 2 ways to approach the new technology: “turning Internet into a telephone and argue down… or you can start” from scratch “and regulate up to the extent that’s necessary. I am a huge believer that the ladder is the only reasonable thing to do, because [VoIP] is not a telephone. It is a new technology. I don’t want it treated like a 100- year-old common carrier model.” However, he clarified that it did “not mean I won’t be convinced that there are important public policy concerns that have to be regulated on top of it. But the burden should be on the government to prove that need.” Powell said if VoIP was defined as a telephone service, “you don’t believe what horrible [consequences] may fly out of that one definition. We'll spend the next 30 years trying to get rid of that.” He acknowledged it was important to solve problems related to 911, CALEA and others, but said: “I think that list is small -- we talk about 4 or 5 critical items that probably have to be addressed, versus hundreds of pages that you'd try to forbear from” otherwise. Powell also said he believed VoIP was an interstate service: “I don’t know whether it’s Internet or telephone, but I know it’s not local.” He said the FCC, not states, was the “principle regulatory authority” for VoIP: “We are working with states, but… the FCC is first in line to set the initial regulatory environment.”