I read from Jeff Pulver‘s blog that the FCC granted his petition to declare FWD an information service. This is great news for the budding VoIP industry, though it still leaves questions unanswered.
Still to be decided is how the FCC will treat VoIP services which terminate to the Public Switched Telephone Network (PSTN). Thus, companies like Vonage and Packet8 are still left in limbo.
Additionally, the question of compelling VoIP companies to make their service wiretap-friendly remains unanswered. According to CNET, the FBI fought Pulver’s petition until the very last minute, complaining that it could not conduct proper surveillance (wah, wah, wah, I say).
It will be interesting to see how the VoIP industry progresses now that this ruling has been made.