By Sharla Sikes

Australia’s Communications and Media Authority aims to revamp regulations on VoIP service providers, beginning with a review of current practices followed by a new “VoIP engagement strategy.”

Chris Cheah, acting ACMA chairman, described the new three-part approach at the CommsDay Summit 2008 in Sydney.

“ACMA’s new approach to applying current regulation to VoIP aims to strike a balance between effectively applying regulation while continuing to enable innovation and providing greater clarity to industry around service provider obligations,” said Cheah.

The ACMA plans to define whether existing regulations effectively serve VoIP, giving providers and consumers the chance to provide feedback and craft a new compliance program. VoIP providers will receive advice on the new regulations when they are in place.

“VoIP services have been of interest to ACMA for some time, but the market has continued to grow and to evolve with a considerable diversity in the way these services are provided. This has in turn led ACMA to consider the implications for the way we think about applying regulation to them. Raising awareness and educating parties about their regulatory obligations is an integral part of ACMA’s compliance activities. ACMA welcomes the opportunity to work directly with the VoIP industry and aim to do this by conducting industry seminars and meeting directly with interested service providers,” he said.

Current regulations are outlined in the Telecommunications Act 1997 and the Telecommunications (Consumer Protection and Service Standards) Act 1999. There are four different types of VoIP providers, according to the ACMA: on-net services; outbound only services, inbound only services and services that provide both inbound and outbound VoIP.

The agency plans to focus on “key compliance areas” in 2008: the provision of emergency calls; IPND notification; TIO scheme membership; geographic numbering; local number portability and Customer Service Guarantee requirements.
Previously, VoIP fell in a “gray area” in regards to regulation. While providers of services using standard phone numbers were to comply with the same rules as traditional phone services, those rules weren’t enforced.

Some of those rules include support for 000 emergency service and 106 for the hearing impaired, but Skype is one VoIP provider which does not support either service.

A December 2007 study by the ACMA showed that while 269 VoIP providers currently offer services, there was no information indicating how many were considered equivalent to the public switched telephone network. That’s an important distinction as the ACMA goes forward with new regulations. VoIP providers that are not considered close substitutes for standard phone services are to use a new number range.

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