FCC could make VoIP providers pay to connect calls

More and more Americans are abandoning home telephone lines in favor of mobile phones, Skype, Google Voice and Vonage — and that leaves the Federal Communications Commission with a problem: figuring out what digital-age companies should pay to connect calls to the old Ma Bell network.

One possible upshot: higher rates for low-cost or “free” Internet calls. The FCC has proposed phasing out the decades-old public switched telephone network altogether and instead moving toward a broadband-based network to accommodate the new, popular applications. Until then, however, the question is what to do when consumers dial someone on the old network using computers and the Internet. “You've got an antiquated telephone network out there,” said Dale Hatfield, a former chief of the FCC’s Office of Engineering and Technology who now teaches at the University of Colorado. “It should be gotten rid of, but there’s an awful lot of money being made on that network.” Some Voice over Internet Protocol services, such as Skype and Vonage, have so far been exempt from paying the same rates that traditional companies like Verizon pay to swap calls on the physical network of telephone lines, circuits and “switches” that connect calls. Since VoIP providers don't have to pay those fees — which are worth billions of dollars — their services have been able to undercut the prices of traditional carriers. Many of those carriers, such as AT&T, Verizon and CenturyLink, want the FCC to intervene and force Internet services to pay like everyone else.