| Well, any FCC ruling can be challenged in court. If their ruling is overly broad--espeically if it touches peer-to-peer which has no regular POTS outgoing, it may well be challenged in court. Just the other week the FCC lost in court. Expect to see litigation if the rumors about the broadness of the ruling are correct. I hate to tell the ILECs, but a move like this by the FCC will just drive many to cellphone only use.
I think we mandate far too many things in this day and age of political correctness, which tend to drive costs of services up to a point that many poor are locked out. (We retired to a rural area where there are still many people who don't have phones due to the cost. Heck, our no flavor, no options, local calling only service was almost 20 dollars more than when we lived back east and most of that was additional fees imposed by the ILEC, which mainly serves rural markets with no choice and puts the screwes to its customers. We're actually getting many more services bundled with VOIP that the ILECs charge substantial fees for--even though the ILECs recouped their investiment in equipment for such services many, many times over and could stand to loweer their fees.)
As for 911, I seem to recall that several generations, including mine, lived for years dialing more than 3 digits to get emergency services. Kids were taught to dail 7 digit numbers. Most of us survived and got prompt reponses from police and fire. It's a nice, but not essential service. |
