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Voice over the Internet: Inter-carrier Compensation Issues Create Challenges for US In-house Lawyers

April 2011
ITTelecommunications

Abstract

This article discusses regulatory issues in the USA surrounding how telecommunications carriers compensate each other for terminating voice over Internet protocol (VoIP) calls. Because VoIP calls originate on a software platform, it is not clear that they are legally subject to ‘access charges’, which US long-distance carriers are required to pay to local carriers for standard long-distance and international traffic. VoIP calls arguably are exempted from access charges because they qualify as an enhanced or information service, as opposed to a telecommunications service, under US law. There are several legal and policy considerations that underlie this controversy, and in-house lawyers with US telecommunications companies have been at the forefront of all of these issues. This article provides background on inter-carrier compensation requirements in the USA, describes the legal and policy questions surrounding VoIP and how they have been, and may in the future be, dealt with in the courts and before US regulatory agencies.

Author

Portrait image of Ted Price
Ted Price
Associate General Counsel, Level 3 Communications, Inc., USA

Ted Price is an attorney with extensive experience advising companies in the global telecommunications industry. He is currently Associate General Counsel, Regulatory Affairs for Level 3 Communications, where he leads a team of attorneys and analysts that is responsible for general regulatory compliance throughout North America and the Asia-Pacific region, intercarrier disputes and litigation, interconnection, peering and traffic exchange agreements, tariffs and reporting.

Company

Level 3 Communications, Inc. logo

Level 3 Communications, Inc.

Level 3 Communications, Inc. (NYSE: LVLT) is a leading multinational provider of telecommunications, data, Internet, video and content delivery network services with over $8 billion in annual revenue, 13,000 employees and a global network that reaches six continents.

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