On Feb. 12, the Federal Communications Commission ruled that a voice communication between two people using PCs is more like an e-mail than a phone call. This decision on a petition brought by Jeff Pulver, the entrepreneur behind the Free World Dialup Internet phone service, meant that the hundreds of thousands of people who now use broadband connections for voice conversations can continue to do so unmolested by the tariffs that are levied on traditional phone calls to support 911 service and universal access to the phone network.
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