FCC Order Would Let Standard-Setting Groups Develop CALEA VoIP Rules

Chmn. Martin has started to circulate among his fellow commissioners an order that would give industry standard- setting groups the first cut at developing rules for making facilities-based broadband and interconnected VoIP services capable of accommodating law enforcement wiretaps, sources said Tues. The FCC approved a CALEA order for VoIP Aug. 5 (CD Aug 8 p1) at the urging of federal law enforcement and released an order Sept. 23.

The order Martin is circulating doesn’t depart from an 18-month deadline for making systems compliant, sources said. But at the same time it doesn’t give DoJ and the FBI everything they were seeking in terms of milestones for moving toward compliance. One source said the order makes some provision for the FBI and DoJ to ask the FCC to step in if the standards setting process doesn’t progress as expected.

The order on circulation also doesn’t address questions raised in a further notice of proposed rulemaking on whether the FCC should extend CALEA obligations to providers of other types of VoIP services. “This is important from the FCC’s viewpoint in moving the ball forward,” one regulatory source said: “Other issues need to be resolved, but industry should be pleased that standard setting groups will be given a chance to develop the rules.”

DoJ and the FBI have asked the FCC to be aggressive in imposing CALEA mandates on VoIP. “CALEA should apply to any VoIP service that enables users to place calls to or receive calls from the public switched telephone network, even if the service does not provide both capabilities,” DoJ said. “Arguments… that the Commission may not ‘expand’ CALEA’s applicability or may not apply CALEA to entities that are not ‘common carriers’ are mistaken.”