17 December 2007

A new lobby group has been set up in an attempt to influence the regulation of Internet telephony in Europe.

Voice on the Net Coalition Europe, which includes large suppliers like
Google, Intel, Microsoft, and Skype, was launched on Friday in response
to regulatory proposals made by the European Commission a month ago.

One of these proposals would require that voice over Internet Protocol
providers enable calls to emergency services. The U.K.'s
telecommunications regulator, the Office of Communications, has since mandated that such access must be made available by September 2008.

Leading VoIP providers, such as Skype, disagree with such proposals,
arguing that VoIP is a complement to, rather than a replacement for,
traditional telephony services.