At 11:37 AM 3/6/96 -0800, Jim McCoy wrote:

2- The phone companies (actually ACTA, the telco lobby) petitioned the FCC on Monday to regulate the Internet phone software companies.

IP phone systems themselves may need to move underground just to escape regulation. OTOH, there is nothing to prevent people from building their own systems once some free software is out there...

That would be a super neat trick since the LD business is currently deregulated (and in fact was never a government monopoly) and the local loop is in the process of deregulation, and Vocaltec is in some senses an Israeli company anyway and need not have a presence in New Jersey if it doesn't want do. DCF