Fresh Wave of 2013 State Bills Seeks to Limit PUC VoIP, IP Regulation

The push to keep states from regulating Internet Protocol-enabled services goes strong in 2013. Legislators in more than half a dozen states introduced such IP bills this year. More than two dozen states had already passed laws before 2013 began, California prominent among them.

The IP transition’s urgency escalated when AT&T introduced an FCC petition urging transition trials last November, and it’s widely accepted that much voice traffic will shift to VoIP and IP-enabled frameworks in the next decade amid these transforming state roles. Proponents and observers told us these state laws will keep appearing, while NASUCA and AARP fear they’ll create public safety and affordability risks. States that introduced such bills include Arkansas, Arizona, Colorado, Connecticut, Iowa, Kansas, Nevada, North Dakota and Wyoming. Some bills lost their fire, while others have already become law. Industry coalitions helped craft some of these bills, as national trade groups urge them forward. They tend to exclude states from regulation but often include exceptions for 911 charges and other funding mechanisms.