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 STATEMENT  OF  COMMISSIONER  MICHAEL  J.  COPPS, 
 CONCURRING 


 Re:  IP-  Enabled  Services,  Notice  of  Proposed  Rulemaking  (WC  Docket  No.  04-  28) 
 After  two  years  of  dialogue  on  classifying,  reclassifying  and  declassifying  services,  in  this  proceeding  the  Commission  finally  focuses  on  the  consequences  of  a 
 Title  I  approach  on  a  whole  range  of  public  safety,  emergency  response,  universal  service  and  disabilities  access  policies  that  we  have  a  duty  to  protect.  I  have  long  advocated  that 
 we  do  this. 
 But  I  limit  my  support  to  concurring  here  because  this  proceeding  on  IP-  enabled  services  strikes  me  as  getting  rather  too  close  to  final  conclusions.  In  this  Notice,  we 
 seem  to  be  judging  IP-  related  services  without  defining  them.  We  ask  questions  about  how  to  classify  these  ill-  defined  services,  but  then  presume,  or  at  least  suggest,  the 
 answers.  The  impression  is  left  that  we  are  asking  what  rules  we  should  apply  when  we  relocate  whole  services  and  technologies  to  Title  I  from  Title  II.  Were  we  eventually  to 
 take  this  route,  we  would  be  rewriting  the  1996  Act—  from  top  to  bottom.  This  agency  has  no  right  to  substitute  its  reclassification  wishes  for  the  will  of  Congress. 


 So  I  will  support  this  Notice  only  with  the  understanding  that,  once  we  have  a  full  record,  our  options  remain  completely  open. 
 We  all  marvel  at  the  transformative  potential  of  new  IP  services.  They  sizzle  with  possibility  for  consumers  and  businesses  alike.  But  for  this  transformation  to  happen 
 with  real  spark,  we  need  keep  some  fundamentals  in  mind.  For  example,  we  need  to  address  intercarrier  compensation  to  create  a  level  playing  field  that  minimizes  arbitrages 
 and  maximizes  the  opportunities  for  new  technologies  to  flourish.  And  we  must  recognize  the  role  that  universal  service  will  play  to  make  sure  that  all  areas  of  the  nation 
 are  covered  with  the  technologies  to  create  a  seamless  communications  system  and  a  seamless  country.  IP  applications  will  only  revolutionize  communications  if  everyone 
 has  access  to  really  high  capacity  bandwidth.  Only  when  everyone,  everywhere  in  America  has  access  to  broadband,  will  the  IP  transformation  we  herald  here  really  take 
 place. 
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