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Vonage Fights Minnesota's Attempts To Regulate VoIP
rmccoy writes "Vonage said Thursday it intends to fight the first-ever decision by a U.S. state to regulate companies that provide Internet-based phone services. Minnesota's Public Utilities Commission unanimously decided two weeks ago that the New Jersey-based voice over IP (VoIP) provider is subject to the rules and regulations that cover traditional phone companies."
I'm a satisfied Vonage customer, and I have to say that I really enjoy having a "phone bill" that is completely straight forward. I'm on the $25.99/month plan, and our monthly bill contains less than $1 in taxes. LESS THAN A FREAKING DOLLAR. How cool is that?
If the government starts getting their fingers in this business that is doing just fine competitively, you can bet that I'll start to see loads of fees and taxes being added onto my bill, turning my $27.00 monthly bill into something more like $40.00. And for what benefits? None.
Go Vonage.
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If you connect to the net via the phone company (DSL or modem), you are already paying these taxes. Vonage and other VOIP companies are simply providing a service over existing telecommunications infrastructure. If they tax VOIP, you will end up paying the tax twice.
It is rediculous to assume that because the service VoIP companies provide to consumers is similar to the service phone companies provide to consumers, the same regulations will work to govern them. In fact, why should VoIP be subject to regulation at all? The only reason I can think of is: if it is not regulated, it has the potential to destroy the market for traditional switched land-line service. But the question we should be asking is, is that a bad thing? Shouldn't we be moving toward a model where phone companies transform into bandwidth providers and voice communication service is provided over the same connection as everything else?
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Just the opposite. It's about data, and it's none of the state's business what my data is or what protocol I wrap it in. If they can regulate VoIP data then they could also regulate you capturing a wave file of your voice and sending it by FTP or as e-mail to a friend. And if they can do that then they might as well stick their fingers into everything you send or even everything you do with your computer.
That's John Ashcroft and Homeland Security and Echelon's job, to snoop into every single corner of your life, not the state government's.
I'm an American. I love this country and the freedoms that we used to have.
Vonage also makes the issue very complex. For $ (N*5) I can get a telephone number that is local to N cities where they offer service. Should those telephone numbers be subject to such 911 fees in each locality, or should you only pay once per telephone number? What if you add a vonage fax line, it's never used for voice, are you required to pay for 911 fees on that as well?
I don't see that the PUCs are out to squash VoIP as a threat, just something that will require some rules to be made regarding 911 service availability, and perhaps some far more interesting things to happen, including giving locations of specific IP addresses to emergency responders. If I know that MIT has 18.0.0.0/8, and each subnet is a /16 (for example) and they have the addresses of these buildings
available, why not have a registry (oh wait, there is, whois/rwhois.. but) of these available, so vonage can say "here's where that ip is". Obviously a very thorny privacy issue as well, because if everyones favorite 4 leter ?IAA org had access as well, you'd keep your file trading down quite a bit i'm sure :).
Back on topic:
No easy solution here, the PUC's don't care how the telephone service works behind the scenes, be it via POTS, VoIP, just that it works and that the required things are done (eg: 911 service in Minnesota). Vonage can always lobby there that they should be exempt and that whomever they're using (Probally focal, as you can see here: npa nxx lookup) to get their blocks of DIDs from should or is already paying such fees. Hopefully they're paying them to focal, the issue is should it be one fee per DS1 (DID) service, or one fee per number assigned to that T1 trunk.
Vonage customers have to agree not to say or listen to anything offensive!
Actually, they're just setting up a contractual obligation not to use their service for obscene phone calls or planning crimes. That's so they are covered against suits if their customers misbehave.
Why did they do this? Because they believe they AREN'T a phone company (common carrier), and that they thus wouldn't be protected by the laws that keep a phone company from being sued for what its customers send over its wires.
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I would say this is a classic case of Corporate Communism, where the government protects Big Business at the expense of Small Business and the Consumer Class.
I prefer to think of the the economic policies of the American Government (which Americans in our not so great wisdom have elected) as Corporate Communism, for lack of a better terminology. I don't think when government does so much to protect Big Business at the expense of all other of societies economic entiites, that capitalism really applies to the American Economic System.
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