Only witches and gods have the ability to see into the hearts of men. Therefore, we often must simply take men at their word. In the case of Verizon offering VoIP providers access to its Public Safety Answering Points (PSAPs) in order to help solve their E-911 dilemmas--despite their competitive relationships--it is enough, and rather refreshing, to take Verizon at its word that altruism played a large part in its decision.

Mark Wegleitner, senior vice president of technology and chief technology officer for Verizon said today that, "There are lots of drivers for this, but the carriers we work with have a vested interest in being able to provide [emergency services] to their customers just as we do...and there is a social motivation as well. This is something that certainly helps society and there is every incentive for that reason to [extend] its use."

In the U.S., where national and state leaders play dangerous and pathetic politics with the security of the nation, it seems almost rude to question the motives of a carrier whose actions promote the security of hundreds of thousands and potentially millions of VoIP subscribers.

But if question you must, you may get responses like these: No, providing access won't really cost Verizon anything. And, yes, many of the competitors' VoIP subscribers may still be Verizon Wireless customers with whom the carrier wants to maintain a relationship. And certainly Verizon doesn't want the negative publicity that would result from Vonage pointing the finger at it (deservedly or not) when a VoIP subscriber is unable to reach 911 and suffers as a result.

But do we really care why? Would anyone care why the Bush administration suddenly reversed its and previous administrations' long-standing position on security and decided to secure our borders? Not right away they wouldn't.

So lets take this moment of clarity, this moment of common sense, applaud it and imagine how it can be applied to other parts of telecom. Imagine what common sense and concern for the greater good could do for regulation. Imagine what common sense regulation, or the lack of it altogether, could do not only for VoIP providers, but also for the incumbent carriers whose latent innovators are injected with disincentive by archaic laws. And imagine what that could do for customers.

There are those who shudder at the thought of what deregulation could do to customers. I'm not one of them. Competition is alive and well in this industry and competition is what is supposed to alleviate concerns about what a truly deregulated communications industry would become. The measure of success for introducing competition into telecom should not be the destruction of the RBOCs (It could happen,) just as its failure should not be measured by the reunification of SBC and AT&T (It is happening.) The success of introducing competition should be measured by the waning need for regulation--just as the success of humanity could be measured by a waning need to look so deeply into the hearts of men.

E-mail me at tmcelligott@primediabusiness.com.