The draft Advanced Internet Communications Services Act stipulates that federal rather than state control is required to achieve this.
Internet telephony, Voice over Internet Protocol, or VoIP, is the transport of telephone calls over an internet connection. For a company that already pays for a broadband connection, long distance calls can become free of charge, albeit VoIP handsets tend to be much more expensive than standard handsets.
The technology has the added attraction of being tax free, given that internet access taxes are presently forbidden in the US, although cash-strapped US states, concerned at losing revenue previously provided by highly taxed telephone calls, are hoping to change this.
The US Internal Revenue Service (IRS) is also eyeing the technology closely, issuing a notice on Friday suggesting that a tax on phone calls (enacted in 1898 to pay for the Spanish-American war) be amended to cover VoIP, according to CNET News.com.
There are further practical concerns, such as the effect of the new services on the emergency 911 systems, and the difficulty of funding low income or rural-based subscribers from VoIP services. At present these are subsidised by what are known as universal service fees, but costs might rise if funding cannot also be raised from the internet telephone service.
In addition, the FBI is worried that VoIP offers terrorists a low risk means of communicating, as the structure for phone tapping and surveillance is less easy to implement.
But there are fears that the industry could falter if it is subjected to overbearing regulatory pressures or taxes and politicians have been responding to calls from service providers to support the new technology.
Introduced into Congress on Tuesday by Congressmen Cliff Stearns and Rick Boucher, the new bill seeks to balance these requirements in relation to all forms of advanced internet communications services, whether these relate to voice, data, video or a mixture of all three.
"The measure which Mr Stearns and I are introducing today will enable the expedited deployment of AICS services by placing all authority over these services at the federal level, treating all providers of the service equally under federal law and applying a light regulatory touch which will encourage investment in, and deployment of, AICS on various internet platforms," Boucher said on Tuesday.
"At the same time, our measure will impose targeted responsibilities on AICS voice providers to assure that universal service funding is sustained, that E-911 services are maintained, that owners of the public switched network are compensated when their facilities are utilised for the termination of internet enabled voice calls and that individuals with disabilities can be assured of access," he added.
According to Boucher and Stearns, The Advanced Internet Communications Services Act would provide regulatory certainty for the deployment of AICS by granting exclusive authority to regulate these services to the Federal Communications Commission (FCC).
Because VoIP services are in a competitive market, neither the FCC nor any state could regulate the prices, terms or other conditions under which such services are offered. In addition, said the Congressmen, the bill would recognise AICS as a new and unique form of service and direct the FCC to regulate it as such.
Under the legislation, the FCC would impose minimal regulation of Advanced Internet Communications Voice services in four key areas only:
The bill follows in the footsteps of one introduced to the Senate in April by Senator John Sununu.
That bill reserves the right to regulate IP telephony to the federal government. It aims to limit the controls that could be posed on the technology by the FCC, and also requires VoIP companies linking into the telephone system to accommodate law enforcement wiretaps. The interception requirements would not apply to purely internet-based services.
A similar bill was introduced into the House of Representatives shortly afterwards by Congressman Charles Pickering.