The New York Times > Business > States' Big Role in Phone Rates May Be Only a Cameo

I agree with Powell that the federal rules should trump the anachronistic approach of state determined access charges. Consumers are moving rapidly away from wireline telephony and to wireless where none of the old rules apply. The rapid trend to wireless Internet access to broadband via Wi-Fi and other approaches also works against the old state regulatory paradigm.

The Internet changes everything, not least the regulatory regime that grew up with the old Bell System. By nature the Internet and the services provided on it is an interstate/interLATA network and should not be subject to state jurisdictional rules. To do otherwise would lead to Balkanization of the Internet in the U.S, an untenable situation.