Minnesota Public Utilities Commission v. Federal Communications Commission

Historically, telephone communications occurred over landlines using circuit switching as a means of routing calls. In a traditional landline call, the geographic location of both the caller and the recipient was easily determined, and the call could be categorized as intrastate or interstate. Voice-over-Internet protocol (VoIP) was a relatively new technology that used packet switching, which transmitted voice communications over broadband Internet. Packet-switched communications were less expensive, and the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) (defendant) had an interest in making VoIP widely available. VoIP communications originated and terminated at IP addresses and thus were not tied to an identifiable geographic location. A VoIP “caller” could contact someone who was also using VoIP in the same state, they could communicate with each other from different states, or only one of them could be in a particular state. In VoIP-to-landline calls, only the geographic location of the landline user could be determined. The Minnesota Public Utilities Commission (MPUC) required any new entrant offering telecommunication services within Minnesota to obtain approval of a “911 service plan” (911 requirement). To fulfill the 911 requirement, a service provider had to be able to determine a caller’s geographic location. In a matter involving VoIP provider Vonage Holdings Corporation (Vonage), the FCC found that there was no practical way for Vonage to identify the geographic location of its customers’ calls and therefore Vonage could not comply with the 911 requirement and would be effectively barred from entry into Minnesota’s markets. The FCC issued an order preempting the 911 requirement. The MPUC filed petitions for review of the preemption order. After issuing its preemption order, the FCC issued an order relating to a means for VoIP users to obtain 911 services by, for example, tying their geographic location to their billing address (911 order).