Leading Providers of Voice Solutions over the Internet Warn Against Threat to Internet Innovation Stemming From European Parliament Vote

Today, the European Parliament voted on the Telecoms Package, including the Universal Service Directive, one of the cornerstones in the Regulation of the Electronic Communications Sector. Though some improvements were made by the Parliament to the proposal put forward by the Commission, a fundamental change in the definition of the scope of this Directive would have far-reaching consequences for a multitude of Internet services and applications, by assimilating them to traditional telephony.

STATEMENT:
Caroline De Cock, Executive Director of the VON Coalition Europe, stated: “Consumers in Europe and across the world have been enjoying the benefits of Voice on the Net applications ranging from chatting to video conferencing, often at no or little cost. This was made possible by the fact that policy makers always accepted hat these innovative products were not replacements to traditional telephony services and should thus not be burdened by the same set of obligations.

Dialing 112 or the national equivalent can be the most important call that a person ever makes. There is a danger in telling consumers that all Voice on the Net applications are now obliged to provide access to emergency services and that consumers can depend on these services for emergency calling when their reliability cannot be guaranteed because they depend on an underlying network that may not be managed by the Internet voice provider. To that one must add the fact that localizing an emergency call over the Internet is not something that can be done technically at this stage, especially when people are using a the Internet on the move, for example through a Wifi hotspot”.

VON strongly believes that, with the right public policies, Internet-enabled voice communications, such as VoIP, can increase competition, provide a platform for innovation, drive broadband deployment, enable economic growth and drive prices down.

The VON Coalition Europe therefore urges the European decision-makers to revise their stance and adopt a pragmatic approach that focuses on promoting more dialogue between their industry and emergency service providers, takes into account the limits of what technology can offer and puts the focus on informing European consumers in order to create realistic expectations. Centering a light-touch approach around information given to end-users about the capabilities of a service or application that permits voice communications seems the most sensible way forward as it notably allows to distinguish between those services using voice over IP that are replacements of home or business telephone services and those that are not.

ABOUT the VON Coalition Europe

The Voice on the Net (VON) Coalition Europe was launched in December 2007 by seven leading Internet communications and technology companies, on the cutting edge – iBasis, Intel, Google, Microsoft, Rebtel, Skype and Voxbone – to create an authoritative voice for the Internet-enabled communications industry.

The VON Coalition Europe notably focuses on educating and informing policymakers in the European Union in order to promote responsible government policies that enable innovation and the many benefits that Internet voice innovations can deliver.

Press Contact:

Caroline De Cock
Executive Director
VON Coalition Europe
Kreupelstraat 33, 1703 Dilbeek (Brussels), Belgium

T : +32 (0)474 840515
@ : cdc@voneurope.eu
http://www.voneurope.eu

This release was published on openPR.