EU Communication on Internet Telephony

Consultative communication on Internet Telephony 

On 10 January 1998, the Commission published a notice(1) setting out the status of voice on the Internet under Directive 90/388/EEC(2) concerning competition on the markets for telecommunications services, as amended.

This Directive defines voice telephony. According to Article 1 of the Directive, "'voice telephony' means the commercial provision for the public of the direct transport and switching of speech in real-time between public switched network termination points, enabling any user to use equipment connected to such a network termination point in order to communicate with another termination point."

This document outlines the Commission's thoughts with regards to Internet telephony and the way it should be treated in comparison to standard voice telephony.

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