Support Sununu

Senator John Sununu is sponsoring legislation to protect VOIP. See his editorial today in the Wall Street Journal: VOIP of the People. Excerpts:

Should local governments have an inherent right to regulate and tax any communication between two individuals that utilizes a human voice? Should we discourage the use of broadband networks for fast, reliable and cheap communications simply because a new technology doesn't fit neatly into an existing regulatory slot? Should regulations discriminate between two data files simply because one carries instant messaging and the other someone's voice?
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The debate has just begun, but the wagons are already being circled by those determined to protect a regulatory scheme based on the copper wire telephone system invented by Alexander Graham Bell. Our goal should be to allow this new technology to evolve, which will dramatically reduce the cost of voice communication to a level commensurate with that of any other bit of data transmitted over the Internet. To ensure that a misguided approach does not develop and to provide certainty to the marketplace, I will introduce VOIP legislation in the coming weeks to establish several key protections for this new technology.