I've been asked to address some of the technical matters of the VoIP at a regulatory-oriented meeting, but not being a consultant my knowledge and experience aren't as broad as they should be. One of the concerns by RLECs related to AT&T (and Verizon's) de-regulation initiative is compensation for origination and termination of traffic. Today many non-pricecap rural carriers are paid by IXCs both for any traffic originated or terminated from the network. Most, if not all, of that compensated traffic, is originated as TDM. The concern is that if the rural carriers move to IP that they won't be paid (hardly) anything for origination or termination. Discussions are being held to use ETS (Ethernet Transport Service) and other NECA-type approach to facilitate a way for RLECs to bill for originating and terminating traffic in an IP-world. These private connections, with QoS support, would allow for both capacity and perhaps volume-type billing. But it's been my experience that much of the VoIP long-distance traffic flows over the Internet, not over private Ethernet circuits. My question to this group, which is very IP heavy and therefore much ahead of the curve in terms of IP-oriented telco operations, is how much traffic flows over public (i.e. Internet) circuits versus private (point-to-point to another carrier or VoIP exchange) circuits, and also how that compares inbound versus outbound. http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/6PRCGWM Any additional commentary on this forum would be help. Regards, Frank