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Why VoIP Makes Telecom Regulations Irrelevant
An anonymous reader writes "BusinessWeek Online analyzes why state and federal regulators' attempts to label VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) a "telecommunications service" is wrong - and threatens to undermine the technology. It quotes Vint Cerf as saying: 'To single out VoIP as a telephone service is a terrible misunderstanding of the Internet industry. I would submit that, someday, the phrase Internet telephony will sound as archaic as 'horseless carriage' sounds today.'" We've also recently discussed Vonage's attempts to fight telecom regulation in Minnesota.
I want it. Where do I go for more information?
Moreover, according to AT&T, Sprint threatened to disconnect the circuits unless AT&T agreed to move all traffic onto paid-for-access service. When AT&T complained, Sprint resumed service but filed a billing dispute claiming that access fees apply whether the call is delivered over the Net or through copper wires.
Sprint disputes AT&T's account, saying the dropped calls were a "translation error" due in part to AT&T's desire to hide what it was doing. Either way, Sprint maintains that the calls should be subject to traditional access fees.
As someone on the other side against AT&T in the 80's over a law called "Avoidance of Toll Charges", I find this incredibly ironic. It seems arguable that AT&T is now a phone phreak.
Hey, AT&T... can I have my Commodore SX-64 portable back now?
~ Whence do you come, slayer of men, or where are you going, conqueror of space?
businesses that try to enact legislation which protects not only their interests, but a business model that is no longer relevant due to advances in science?
Get with the times, or get out of the way.
This is just another attempt by the biggies of the industry cartel to control communication and control costs. IMO, it will prove unsuccessful, as VOIP relies on the fundamental technology of the web, which cannot be controlled by state or federal governments.
A blog like any other.
We've seen time and time again, the government is not very good at handling technology. They inevitabley screw it up. They overregulate and kill whatever was good to begin with. After a while they'll find a large corportation that they can back via the DMCA to comandere the technology and prosocute the originators for piracy. This has happened before. And it looks like they're planning to do it again.
KEEP YOUR GRUBBY HANDS OFF.
A free, open internet has done wonders for this country economically and technologically. Yet they continue to turn and backstab the free and open system.
damn... damn damn.
Slashdot Syndrome: the sudden, extreme urge to correct someone in order to validate one's self.
...can someone perhaps explain?
Traditional telephony lets people talk at a great distance and travels over telco lines. And gets taxed.
VoIP lets people talk at a great distance and travels over telco lines. And does not get taxed.
What is the difference? A matter of what the encoder/decoders look like? A matter of historical roots of VoIP emerging from a (presumed) free technology?
I want free phone calls as much as the next guy, but I'm not sure I understand why VoIP is so different from traditional phone calls. (Or for that matter, why email and AIM are not subject to taxation too, since they also travel over the same telco system, but even mentioning this greatly increases my troll-likelihood.)
Hmm...I didn't need to register to read the article.
That's strange; I didn't have to register.
the phrase Internet telephony will sound as archaic as 'horseless carriage' sounds today.
Well, we used to call it just "net phony", but people kept confusing it with dating services.
Best Windows Freeware
As I understand it all those "10-10-$NUM" services you see advertised on the television all use VoIP. My 5 cent (CA$) long distance (to
Trolling is a art,
The article focuses on why WOIP should not be held to conventional telephone's regulations because the technology involved is vastly different. However, to the end user, they just (or least should be able to) pick up the phone and dial a number. If VOIP is providing a functionally equivalent service, then they should be held to the same standards as conventional phone services. (Note: This is why Paypal gets to screw their customers regularly, since they are not regulated as a bank)
If Vonage et. all. succeed, it should be on the basis of providing a better product for less money, not by finding and exploiting loopholes in the regulations that are desinged to protect consumers.
OK...
I can do this. I am, after all,
a superhero!
If data should be taxed, then do that -- tax by the megabyte or whatever. But there's no particularly good reason that some data should be taxed more than other data. Downloading slashdot's mainpage travels over the same infrastructure as making a VoIP call, so why should the latter be subject to special taxes?
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
The telephone companies had ISDN a *long* time ago and tried to rip-n-gouge money out of their subscribers; hence, the modem was invented as a way to circumvent that ludicrous system.
Of course, the phone companies tried to get modems banned. Or, at the very least, get legislation to charge separate access fees for those users because they knew nobody would pay such high prices for ISDN when they could make local calls ($.05, untimed in my area) and get reasonable (although slower) speed.
Now they're in the same boat. With the advent of technology that allows similar operation as the phone, but over the internet, they're scrambling to find ways to bring it under *their* control. I'm assuming that at this point, you don't need to be told why.
I'd expect this to go the same way I expect the Hydrogen Fuel Cell car to go in America with "Big Oil" resisting it... slow the adoption of the technology until a very large interest in it can be secured by the large corporations affected.
And *we*, the people, allow it to happen... write your congress person and tell them "hell no!"
Diplomacy is the art of saying, "Nice doggie!" until you can find a rock.
Neither MCI or any other carrier is routing their calls via "the Internet". They're carrying them on internal networks over TCP/IP. That they share a common set of protocol and hardware infrastructure doesn't make them "Internet".
Indeed the closest this sort of inane statement could get to being correct is that some carriers might be routing some of their telephony and traditional data services over the same connections using the same hardware; hardly news and not at all what the article implies.
I don't read ACs: If a post isn't worth so much as a nom de plume to its author then I wont bother either.
Actually Verizon is already trying to head off competition from VOIP services by offering a "Freedom" package (I don't know what the other Baby Bells are doing) which includes DSL, unlimited local and long distance for a set price (wireless as well.) I expect that this is to stop encroachment of VOIP into the lower end of the market (residential / small business.)
One of the reasons I got the VOIP service was the fact that I'm sick of being scr*w*d with by local phone companies. It's also cheaper, and the sound quality is better. (And hey - I'm a geek.)
I just recently moved. I had a cable modem installed in my new house before I cut off my broadband service at my old house. I unplugged the little Cisco box that my Vonage phone service runs out of and took it to my new house and plugged it in. I ran the phone cable that comes out of it into the nearest wall jack... et voila! My home phone service for my entire house just moved from one house to the next in 20 minutes with no hassles.
The last time I moved I was using Qwest. Instead of transferring my phone number from one home to the next in adjoining towns in the Minneapolis suburbs, they transferred my phone number to a town in Iowa and told me that there was no way that they could move it back in less than three days.
Anything that threatens to impede the growth of regular phone alternatives must be stopped. The traditional phone companies deserve to die a slow death if they can't get their heads around the idea of "customer service" instead of "self serving."
Quoth he
"It's all academic anyway..."
Phone taxes pay for emergency services such as police, fire, and ambulatory response systems and the 911 emergency call service. I think it's perfectly fine for VoIP users to pay those taxes as well, because everyone relies on emergency services.
Traditional telephony shouldn't be subject to a special "telecommunication tax" in the first place. Let's tax every business equally, and there won't be any duck classification problem.
I've seen all the stuff about Vonage here in Minnesota. Vonage advertises constantly, but given that my broadband provider is Comcast, I wouldn't exaclty WANT to rely on that service staying up, and that's what worries me about how VoIP is marketed by a lot of places.
It's great that for only $39.99 (plus broadband, easily $45/month) I can make calls all across the nation. Sounds nifty. And yes, it's increased competition. But unfortunately, Vonage makes little fuss about the fact that if your broadband provider goes down you're screwed. How about those 911 calls?
For very close to the same prices, I can get MCI's The Neighborhood plan with DSL here. Same thing with Qwest now. Yeah, I'm paying extra taxes, which sucks, but they are required by law to give me service. There's a maximum amount of downtime they're allowed, and I can call 911. I use The Neighborhood without DSL now, and even if the power goes out, I can still make calls.
Given this nation's power grid and the lack of good service contracts and requirements for uptime with broadband providers, I don't think I'd like to trust VoIP anytime soon here.
So, VoIP people, get back to me when you're willing to submit to some regulations for the quality of service.
The power of accurate observation is commonly called cynicism by those who have not got it. - G.B. Shaw
Sprint disputes AT&T's account, saying the dropped calls were a "translation error" due in part to AT&T's desire to hide what it was doing. Either way, Sprint maintains that the calls should be subject to traditional access fees. According to Sprint's FCC filing, access fees make up between one-third and one-half of incumbents' revenue stream. "Rob Malda's failure to gain access to gay men and charges on this traffic places [local-carrier] revenue at extreme risk [and] could exacerbate cost imbalances among [long-distance] competitors," the filing warns.
The parent post needs to be modded down. Read in there carefully. It was un-neccessary, and I highly doubt it was in the origional article. Not that it was any better to quote it, but how else will people see it?
bork bork bork!
The US economy is fat-packed with industries kept above water through government protection and subsidies. The telecom industry is not going to give away their revenue stream without a fight.
--
Long-term effects of Bush deficits
The one reason that the government wants to treat VOIP as a telecom service is wiretapping.
CALEA requires access to telecom services, for just that purpose.
Did everyone sleep through the blackout of 3 weeks ago? VOIP didn't work. Cel phones didn't work. Land lines worked. Why? The fundamental reason is regulatory requirements that ensure a certain level of reliability. Those requirements date from a different era - lord knows they'd never pass in today's "pro-business" climate. Imagine if everyone had been using VOIP and there were no self-powered phone network? I hope you have a ham radio license!
The entire purpose of regulatory bodies is to shape the market such that companies act in ways beneficial to the public interest, where absent regulation they would be inclined to cut corners for short term profit, setting up everyone for a disaster in the long run.
Why can vonage sell unlimited phone service for $40/mo? They externalize all the costs of line maintenance. If your broadband service fails, you have no phone, and it's not Vonage's problem to rectify it.
Personally, I can't stand ILECs and in fact don't have a land line myself, but the dogma that telephony shouldn't be subject to regulatory requirements if it uses the internet doesn't sit well with me.
Of course, if internet service was as reliable as electric service, or if either were as reliable as phone service, this wouldn't be an issue. But the reason the land-line phone service is reliable is gov't regulation.
-Isaac
I am not a lawyer, and this is not legal advice. For Entertainment Purposes Only.
Traditional phone service costs me $20/mo for unlimited local calls -- and I can get a line for as low as $13/mo with restrictions on outgoing calls. So the VoIP product is more expensive and less reliable -- features are great, but for myself and many others, reliability and price are probably the two biggest considerations when choosing a phone service.
And this is before states impose phone taxes (yeah I know, it makes no sense from a geek standpoint -- but the fact is phone taxes as currently written don't make any sense anyway, and it's a revenue stream that legislators are going to ensure remains available). The only way I can see this business model making sense is if Vonage is going after the bad-credit crowd -- folks who've already had their phone service shut off and are willing to spend more money on a company in exchange for the benefit of the doubt. There are other companies that do this, too. Maybe you can make money charging high rates to a clientele that's likely to default on their obligations; I don't know. But it doesn't seem like the way to popularize the technology.
The problem I have is that my landline telephone has been more reliable (way more) than either the electricity or the broadband. I am hesitant to tie my telephone service to the broadband, since if it goes out, I have no telephone and no way to call and say that I have no telephone.
Its like those helpful suggestions while on hold with the broadband folks to visit their website, when you're calling them because you can't visit any website.
Catch-22. Chicken-and-the-egg.
They say the first thing to go is your penis. Well, it's either that or your brain. I forget which...
last summer when i was in Kuwait i called my girlfriend in GA using ordinary telecom initially and then using VoIP. The telecom service was almost 2 dollars per minute, so the call was brief and not much was said, whereas the VoIP i finally managed to get was 1.7 cents per minute using vocaltech, yes! one point seven cents from kuwait to georgia USA, and was just great; i talked to my girlfriend, whom i'd not seen or had a good convo with for over a month or more, with VoIP for over 3 hours first time i used it, and it was a heavenly feeling, omg it felt like being able to breath again, i had just missed home so much, my girl and my baby, that i just got tearful and then as the hours passed with me lying on my back in the dark wearing a headset i just felt sorta happy. That, i think, is what makes a technology, any technology, so wonderful.
so while this isn't a mathematically attractive way to do it, it's enacting a mechanism that makes sense, imho -- regressive taxation actually is the best way to approach data taxation
Kinda stole your thunder, eh?
You've got your history wrong. Modems existed long before ISDN.
Not all ISDN is a price rip off, there are apparently some tarifs for it in the US that undercut regular POTS prices.
ISDN was simply too complicated, too late, and too slow.
I noted this has gotten moderated as flamebait. It is however a valid, if angry opinion. However I would suggest to the poster, instead of shaking your fist at the establishment, that you do something proactive. Like putting yourself in the shoes of your legislators, and writing up an alternative that the majority can live with, and submitting it. That'll get you much farther than those folks who do nothing but complain (just the fact that you've done so will get you noticed). Don't forget to vote in all relevent elections, as well as becoming more active in your community. Do editorials in your local paper. Write pieces for magazines. Shaking your fist on a geek site however will do little, if anything. OH BTW Vote with your wallet.
Do you want reliable telephone service? Even if there is a power failure?
Do you want guaranteed availability of telephone service at uniform and reasonable rates, even if you live on a farm or in a slum?
Do you want 911 service that works?
Besides loss of tax revenues and control, there is a good reason for regulatory agencies to be concerned about VOIP. What if VOIP severely damages the market for conventional telephone service? That could result in the loss of universal and reliable, even if somewhat overpriced, telephone service in this country.
Mea navis aericumbens anguillis abundat
The linked article needs no registration. He's just a karma whore.
Kargol:Well, we psychiatrists have found that over 8% of the population will always be mice. I mean, after all, there's something of the mouse in all of us. I mean, how many of us can honestly say that at one time or another he hasn't felt sexually attracted to mice. (Linkman looks puzzled) I know I have. I mean, most normal adolescents go through a stage of squeaking two or three times a day. Some youngsters on the other hand, are attracted to it by its very illegality. It's like murder - make a thing illegal and it acquires a mystique. (Linkman looks increasingly embarrassed) Look at arson - I mean, how many of us can honestly say that at one time or another he hasn't set fire to some great public building. I know I have. (phone on desk rings; the Linkman picks it up but does not answer it) The only way to bring the crime figures down is to reduce the number of offences - get it out in the open - I know I have,
... whenever I see Vint Cerf mentioned on /. I get the urge to post pictures I have of him posing along with friends in these really cool thriftstore StarTrek shirts.
Apart from being a really cool geek he is also a really cool geek to me.
Sorry for the interruption, mod me down now please.
naah sig schmig
Voip in my view is a bad hack to make things cheaper. Here are some reasons I don't like voip and feel it should not be used for telco backbones. (I also have a list of good things)
1. With the recent worm activity, it just showed how much The net is vurnable to attack. I don't know about you But I want to be able to call people when my net connection is down.
2. Voip is traveling over a unsecure network. Meaning that the voip gateways can be spoofed, dos'ed, hacked, etc.
3. Voip is better equiped for use in private networks (meaning your home or small bussiness)
4. Bandwidth isn't set aside for voip session. Blurp's being hungup by a 'dos happy 13 year' (yah yah sure we will have ipv6 but its still on a unsecure network.)
Reasons why voip is cool.
1. Its not set on a single route.
2. Its fun to play with for a quick chat with a friend over the internet.
All and all voip is pretty cool But I don't want to see it intergrated into the public phone system. If the phone company's want to implement a decentrillised system then they need to colaborate together. To make a system which isn't prone to attacks.. what it comes down to is what QOS (quailtiy of service) that a new system can provide.. voip isn't going to provide a high enough qos for me. (there are reasons why the phone system has huge battery banks.)
"I pay $46 for my cable tv and cable modem, and $25 for the phone service. The $71 still comes out cheaper than my POTS was, and I get cable TV and cable modem."
Well that's all fine and good, but as someone else pointed out in another website. part of the problems consumers are having, result from the pursuit of lowest cost by the consumer.
I think a better question to ask in your case, is what are you willing to give up to get a lower price?
Are you willing to give up reliability? Are you willing to give up 911. What?
Is that they do this.
Little startups figure out ways to make money off the new technology, because they're not so entrenched. Massive megacorps trying to adapt to new technology are like covered wagons trying to chase a bee. As much as they'd like to catch that bee, they just can't maneuver fast enough. So rather than let somebody else eat their honey, they pass a law requiring that the entire prairie be filled with bug spray. "Bees can sting!" they say, ignoring the fact that bees make edible products.
Eventually, they get the covered wagon heading in the right direction, they roll on up to the bee carcass now lying in the road, and then "relent", "embracing the new technology". I.e., through legislation they've succeeded in making technology no longer a moving target, and now they want their piece of the action.
I don't think it's surprising that many of these technologies are proving somewhat resistant to legislative bug spray. People are still swapping music and movies, people are still using Internet telephony and listening to Internet radio. Evolution will naturally start to produce tech that can't be hurt by legislative bug spray.
It's rare that you're presented with a knob whose only two positions are Make History and Flee Your Glorious Destiny.
Are there any projects out there geared toward DIY VoIP? I mean, from a technical standpoint, packets are packets, right?
It couldn't be that hard, could it? Where do I sign up?
And yes, the Vonage customer's end is VOIP and independent of the existing phone line system(this is only true for cable, if the broadband is DSL then it's part of the phone system).
But the other isn't. In fact, it's that non VOIP other end that allows Vonage to exist at all.
Anyone who says Vonage isn't a telephone service doesn't understand the system.
See, if two people had broadband(a requirement for the Vonage system) they could talk in stereo sound with video added for..... NOTHING.
That $40 a month Vonage charges people is for the phone system/internet interface it offers. Nothing else.
If EVERYONE had a broadband connection tommorrow, Vonage would file chapeter 11 the following day.
Vonage uses the existing phone system for half or more of it's buisiness, it should have to support that system like every other buisiness that profits from it's existence.
If a service:
Provides you with a PSTN phone number and
Allows you to call the PSTN and
Allows anyone on the PSTN to call you
then it is de facto a telephone service.
If you really want to spur the growth of VoIP, just deregulate all CLECs.
It's a question of costs, degree and scale. The cost of bandwidth is dropping exponentially anyway, and going from conventional telephony to VOIP drops the costs by atleast a factor of 4 (due to compression) further. Essentially, telephony traffic is rapidly becoming not worth taxing.
What is the difference? A matter of what the encoder/decoders look like?
Largely. The point with VOIP is that you can install good compression at the endpoints- compression technology has made big strides in the last few decades, also the voice path needs only be open in one direction at a time (you're not blocked from talking by VOIP, but most of the time only one person talks and the compression compresses the other end down to nothing). This means that VOIP uses far less resources.
In fact, telecommunications bandwidth became predominately data a few years ago- the proportion of voice is shrinking away; and going to VOIP makes this happen much more so.
(Or for that matter, why email and AIM are not subject to taxation too, since they also travel over the same telco system, but even mentioning this greatly increases my troll-likelihood.)
You're wrong they are- email (and AIM in a different way) are already subject to taxation in most cases- you're paying for your bandwidth and the (very small) costs of, say, email comes out of your bandwidth carges; which are usually taxed anyway (atleast I pay tax on it here).
-WolfWithoutAClause
"Gravity is only a theory, not a fact!"In order to have VoIP you have to have broadband first and presumably you've payed taxes on it. Once you have a legit broadband connection it shouldn't matter what the bits are you send over it.
Imagine going to the post office to mail a parcel and have to pay the parcel charges PLUS the cost of a first class letter since you included a piece of paper in the box. Of course, the USPS did that for a while, too.
If you are paying for bulk data transfer it shouldn't matter what the payload is.
Fella, if I had mod points, you'd get one.
Key to financial independence: Spend less than you earn. Save and invest the difference. Do it for a long time.
The entire purpose of regulatory bodies is to shape the market such that companies act in ways beneficial to the public interest, where absent regulation they would be inclined to cut corners for short term profit, setting up everyone for a disaster in the long run.
I think you're underestimating the consumer. I personally have decided *NOT* to choose VOIP over Verizon's $50/Umlimited plan, because I personally value the reliability of the copper network.
Many people, including my brother, feel otherwise which is why they opted to not to invest the local phone network, but rather their alternative broadband network (cable modem, wireless, etc.)
IMO, I think this type of competition is healthy for the Telco's and is forcing them to provide a better product. Even my mother understands that reliability is an important factor when deciding to replace your ILEC with VOIP, and despite the constant sales pitches from my brother, she still opted to stick with Verizon.
Don't underestimate the consumer.
(Not that we ALL haven't dealt with idiot customers)
"Communism is like having one [local] phone company " - Lenny Bruce
This doesn't (or shouldn't) apply to the internet because the government created most of the infrastructure of the internet.
How do you mean? I thought that phone companies built the phone lines and cable companies built the cable lines. What about servers and routers? Do I have the wrong idea about what you mean by infrastructure?
Economics and Politics. the fact is that the government has a duty to address the potential economic impacts that VoIP has on the telecommunications industry. Vonage et. al. have an economic advantage over ILECs because they are providing competing voice services with out paying the same taxes. The same advantage I might add that cable providers enjoy. In the grand scheme of things VoIP is a very small element of telecommunications in terms of widespread end user adoption but is is large part of enterprise planning/deployment for businesses. The government has a history of controlling the growth of technology due to potential economic impact. For instance, why are we still an oil based economy? because the government likes it that way and adoption of alternatives would put in jeopardy the many industries that are based on oil. For similar reasons the government is probably going to regulate VoIP because they don't want the telecommunications industry to be thrown into total chaos. Not to mention the high powered lobbies these industries employ to preserve their business models Another fact to consider is that all ILECs are probably now using VoIP technologies in their network backbone. They aren't deploying it to the end users yet because they make more money by selling facilities to its customers. VOIP is a great technology although there are many issues to consider before deploying it not the least of which is Quality of Service and the ability to dial 911.
two cans and a string, now that's innovation
I wish I had mod points, because this comment is so on the mark. I can't believe I had to read this far down the page to see this expressed.
Every penny Vonage earns is in its bridging of two existing networks, and it shouldn't be allowed to pick and choose the regulations it likes from both networks.
How did they manage to get phone #s allocated to them without getting hit with these fees in the first place is beyond me. Somebody care to shed light on that process?
Its not worth it to stifle a new industry with fee's and unfair regulation to prepare for a disaster that happens every 25 years. Worried about the power going out? Then get a lan line phone.
In our insane and archaic world of telephony regulations, a data packet is a data packet is a data packet, unless it carries voice; then it somehow magically transforms itself into a "telephony service" and everyone thinks it should be regulated and taxed in a completely different manner.
:).
IP Telephony uses the same infrastructure and packetized protocols as other "data" carried on the internet. The real danger is not just to the emergence of IP telephony, but to the concept that all data is "equal" on the internet. Internet billing, where it exists, is content neutral until now. Imagine if next someone choose to "tax" other kinds of protocols or content selectivily; imagine what would happen to the prn industry if an image transport tax came into existintance
I sure hope that was a typo!!! ;-)
Well, good luck. Look at this another way: To single out the RIAA as a 'music' service is a terrible misunderstanding of the Recording industry.
The telcos are cut from the same business mentality. Any time you have a slow moving (monopolistic and well established) business that gets blindsided by new technology, you'll see court activity pick up with business-preserving cases that miss the point of moving forward. Companies like to survive and those with the most influence (money) will use their resources in any way possible to avoid change.
VOIP users aren't creating digital ruts in the information superhighway, now, are they?
Most popular Internet services are burst-based. The Web, e-mail, and the like operate by sending bursts of data. The Internet protocols were designed for such bursts.
VoIP, on the other hand, requires a constant two-way stream of a few kilobytes per second each way and usually needs some sort of quality-of-service improvement technique to keep the stream's latency from fluctuating wildly when stream packets get queued up behind big bursts.
So yes, VoIP traffic is fundamentally different from that of other popular Internet services, and if the routing algorithms aren't tweaked to accommodate it, there will be ruts.
Will I retire or break 10K?
On VoIP: "We've seen it time and time again, the government is not very good at handling technology. They inevitably screw it up. They overregulate and kill whatever was good to begin with. They should keep their grubby hands off!"
On Microsoft: "The government needs to DO SOMETHING about this EVIL MEGACORP already!!!"
On illegal file sharing: "Copyright law needs to be changed to fit the times, I should be able to copy whatever files I want, information wants to be free after all, and that's all this music and video stuff is anyway, information."
In summary: The government needs to do what's good for ME!! MEMEMEMEMEME!! Don't get me wrong, I love Slashdot and the people who post here - where else can I get comedy like this day after day!
the upstart. uses tunnels drilled 1000 feet under ground
How did the upstart gain permission from each landowner to drill such tunnels? Some of the gas tax and license plate fees go toward compensation for the landowners who gave up their land to run a road across it.
Will I retire or break 10K?
Yes Im sick of it.
It seems that businesses are allowed to cut jobs all they want for profit. The second some technology comes along that makes "the people" profit as opposed to the company, suddenly we need to protect jobs.
So fully expect to see these companies complaining about how if they dont tax VOIP, then they will loose x # of jobs...
If i want to call 911, i'll use my cell phone thanks..
As far as a "hardwired" phone.. screw the bell's and AT&T's and Sprints..
The great thing about the internet is it's open.. you can fire whatever you want on it, and as long as someone has a way of listening it's all good. Big deal if one packet is VOIP and another is a Quake packet. they are all packets.. postcards with a source and a destination that carry a little message. What i do with that message on the end is no business of the governement or the phone company.
For emergency services.. use cell phones.. they are "pretty reliable" (still not 100%.. but hey.. you can take them ANYWHERE and service is getting better) for the net.. leave it open and free.
I too live in Minnesota.
I have to say that I have mixed feelings about this whole VOIP thing.
I get the impression that people and corporations want to have their cake and eat it too.
I'm not going to make the assumption that most people here who argue against VOIP regulations also want to see broadband as a public utility, but I see something like that in the aggregate opinion.
If you want the internet to become like a public utility--that is, for ATT, Comcast, and these other semi-monopolistic entities to be forced to free up their networks to competitors, you have to submit to some sort of regulation for the protection and reimbursement of the public. If you don't want to see that happen, fine, but then don't complain when these corporations aren't forced to compete.
I personally feel that broadband should become a public utility, and that the physical networks should be opened up to competition. In doing so, I think that a small tax should be applied to companies to establish reliable services ala 911 (but many other government services as well, such as weather reports, traffic updates, and the like). I have no problem with regulating VOIP in this regard.
The problem as I see it is that the state doesn't want to spend the money to establish a public internet system, and the corporations don't want to be held responsible for providing certain basic services. This really can't go on forever, but no one wants to admit to it.
Qwest is asinine, and needs a good punch of competition. I can't believe how complacent and poor it is. But the way to do this, as you suggest in your post, is by establishing standards that have to be adhered to, and open competition within those standards. Freeing one monopoly not playing by the rules by allowing another corporation to get away with not playing by the rules is not a good idea.
The bottom line is that federal government exists for a vast number of reasons, like people cheering behind the president as he asks for $87 billion to throw at Iraq, which, along with the rest of the $2 trillion budget, has to come from somewhere.
s
o .xls
The schedule for excise taxes will illuminate the tedious number of seemingly ridiculous taxes, which together provide about $70 billion in revenue, or more or less what it costs for a year's worth of fumbling around in Iraq. Telephone taxes bring in just under $7 billion.
Contrary to popular opinion, your hard-earned-dollars that you'd so like the government to keep their "grubby hands off" make up only half of the budget. The other TRILLION has to come from somewhere. Of course, we could just overthrow the government and pretend we're living in Western Sahara in blissful anarchy.
Excise taxes only:
http://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-soi/02ex21te.xl
Gross receipts:
http://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-soi/02db07c
I remember back in '84 when I had my new 300 baud modem, the telecoms were trying to weasle their way into charging people extra for data connections. Their fear, I guess, is that people were able to exchange data at a much more rapid pace than spoken word, thus stay connected less; resulting in less profits for the telephone providers.
I really hate it that data can't just be considered data by telecommunication providers. It's all just bits to them.
Charging voip carriers the same tax scheme is like charging electric car owners extra money because they don't pay gas tax.
Have you ever been to a turkish prison?
What's interesting about the VOIP issue is that tradtitionally, the phone company not only had control of the physical medium, but of the related services as well. Now that VOIP providers can step in and do whatever they want (with their own gateways, switches, or whatever), control over service and the user experience in general is much more diversified. It might come to be that we just start paying for the use of the physical medium, whether it be for packets, or traditional phone calls.
But then again, what if it's a cable connection? At some point, the packet enters the internet, but until it gets there, the method of transport belong to another entity entirely (as in, NOT the phone company). Could make for an interesting twist.
Do you want reliable telephone service? Even if there is a power failure?
Yup. But if the local CO loses power as well, I still lose phone service (as the recent NE blackout demonstrated).
Moreover, cell phones do not require a wired power connection - For that matter, *most* people I know (with cell phones) exclusively use their cars to charge their phones. So local blackouts have no effect, as long as the phone company still has power.
Do you want guaranteed availability of telephone service at uniform and reasonable rates, even if you live on a farm or in a slum?
Again, cellular has made the "last mile" issue, as it applies to telephone service, irrelevant.
Do you want 911 service that works?
Not particularly... I can manage a phonebook just fine, and PDs, FDs, and hospitals all still have standard everyday phone numbers we can call. 911 makes it slightly easier, when away from your local area, to call these. But nothing we can't do without (as proven by people "doing without" it entirely in most places, as recently as two decades ago).
That could result in the loss of universal and reliable, even if somewhat overpriced, telephone service in this country.
Yes, it could. I agree completely with your point, to that extent. I think you may have missed the larger idea, though, that we no longer need any of that. If the FCC really wants to get involved, they could work to guarantee things such as 911 (which I admit makes a nice convenience, even if not necessary), number portability, service provider interoperability, things of that nature. But to cripple VoIP by treating it as just part of the existing infrastructure... Well, perhaps it would help if I pose to you the exact question that popped into my mind while reading the links from the main article...
"To whom do the termination fees go when using VoiP?"
Really, who? Okay, the taxes vanish in the same way that all taxes do, but the rest? If I make a data connection, from Adelphia (who I already pay for my connection), via Vonage (who I could pay for that connection), to COX (who the person I call already pays for their data connection), exactly who do all the middleman fees go to? Sprint, for the optical backbone that both Adelphia and COX already pay to use? Verizon, because they have a monopoly in most of the local areas served by Adelphia and COX, but which has no role whatsoever in the call going through? Who?
Yeah, this issue has some meaning as long as we route from VoIP to POTS (and the examples from the linked article seemed to only involve that one situation, while the proposed regulation goes quite a lot further). But if we stick with VoIP-to-VoIP (the obvious end result assuming stupid laws don't make such an outcome impossible), no middleman exists, period.
So who would the mandatory fees (not taxes) go to?
If I had a copper line, how many times do I pay taxes for this wonderful privelage?
1) Income Tax
2) SSI Tax
3) State Tax (some states)
4) Insurance Deduction (taxed through the Insurance Provider, cost passed on to me)
5) Universal Service Fee
6) Line Access Surcharge (taxed and passed on)
7) Federal Tax
8) Long Distance Access Charge (also taxed and passed on)
9) ???
10) MASSIVE PROFIT!!!
Seems rather excessive that I am taxed at least three times on every dollar I make and spend!
Just my $.02 (after taxes from $1.00)
You can have it fast, accurate, or pretty. Pick any 2.
I'm in MN. I have Vonage. It has 911 Service.
If the power goes out, I'll use my cell phone.
It's cheaper, flat-rate, and I'm happy to cut the cord with the pots service scumbag-phone companies.
I applaud your candor - screw the "manly" crowd - most of whom probably know little to nothing about what being a "man" is all about.
An electric car's usefulness is independant of gas or internal combustion cars. VoIP services like Vonage are useless without the existing phone network. Would you pay 40$ a month to call another person on a broadband link? No, because you can do it for free.
So Vonage is allowed to consume resources in the existing phone network, like phone numbers and use of the last mile lines to normal phones, yet skirt the fees that keep the system, and Vonage's only source of value, running? I think not.
For instance, why are we still an oil based economy? because the government likes it that way and adoption of alternatives would put in jeopardy the many industries that are based on oil.
Bush's own wealth, for example. Surely we wouldn't want anything to jeopardize that, now, would we?
If EVERYONE had a broadband connection tommorrow, EVERYONE would have a Vonage/Packet8 phone and all calls would be VoiP to VoiP and free worldwide.
The LEGACY Interface Vonage/Packet8 provides is the reason I can cancel my overpriced deprecated phone service and only use my $19.95/month unlimited long distance to US/Canada VoiP.
My Linux Command of the Day site : LCOD
Here are some addresses for anyone wishing to voice their opposition to this plan. (borrowed from a FreeRepublic post...
If anyone here wants to Freep the PUC:
Website: http://www.puc.state.mn.us/
E-mail: consumer.puc@state.mn.us
Burl W. Haar
Executive Secretary (since 1993)
E-mail: Burl.Haar@state.mn.us
Phone: (651) 296-7526
Secretary: Mary Swoboda
Phone: (651) 297-4788
E-mail mary.swoboda@state.mn.us
Phone: (651) 297-4788
Catherine Hennessey
E-mail: catherine.hennessey@state.ms.us
Phone: (651) 296-7940
LeRoy Koppendrayer
Chairman
E-mail: LeRoy.Koppendrayer@state.mn.us
Phone: (651) 296-0621
Secretary: Ronnie Slager
Phone: (651) 297-4993
E-mail: ronnie.slager@state.mn.us
Gregory Scott
Commissioner
E-mail: Gregory.Scott@state.mn.us
Phone: (651) 296-0621
Secretary: Mani Heu
E-mail: mani.heu@state.mn.us
Phone: (651) 296-6902
Phyllis Reha
Commissioner
E-mail: Phyllis.Reha@state.mn.us
Phone: (651) 296-0621
R. Marshall Johnson
Commissioner
E-mail: Marshall.Johnson@state.mn.us
Phone: (651) 296-0621
It seems like people are forgetting why telecom regulation exists.
- The ILEC phone company has to provide POTS to everyone at the same price, they're not allowed to simply bypass a small town where they can't make a profit on concentrate only on the profitable cities.
- 911 always gets to the correct local authorites on a POTS line. Cell phones have had their problems with this, but they're being ordered to make it work now. You don't even need to have paid service to reach 911, any network that hears an emergency call request must handle it. They even have to drop a paying customer to make way for a 911 call if that has to happen. By comparision, VoIP sometimes has no clue what to do when you dial 911...
- POTS is required to have golden uptime standards by law. Yeah, when was the last time you picked up your phone and didn't get a dialtone? The ILEC has to build a super-reliable network, because we're so dependant on it. Afterall, when phone service is out the local police have have to do extra patrols to make up for the fact they've lost the 911 reporting system, that costs taxpayer money when that happens.
So, if you want to create a service that's going to replace POTS, you've got to be as good as POTS. We can't have Vonage come in and tell people it's okay to cancel their POTS lines and use them itstead unless Vonage is willing and able to totally replace all of the public-interest services that ILECs provide.
Let's face it, the ILECs don't provide 911 and their high reliablity standards just to be nice, they do that because we require them to by law. The least we can do to pay these companies back is promise that anybody who competes with them also has to jump through the same hoops...
I know this is off-topic, but an Open Source Army could be extremely powerful if it were built on the right principles. I'm thinking of groups like Earth First!, who use rather extreme methods for furthuring their ideas. The Open Source community could easily create a set of principles to build upon, and with enough collective knowledge it's quite possible that such a group could even use entirely legal means to furthur their ideas. I'm not suggesting the use of armed force, violence, or weapons, of course - more like an organized group for trading ideas and actions. Throw in the use of networks like freenet to distribute documents, and such an army could be an extremely powerful tool for social change.
-1, Troll? WTF? In a world of justice, this would be modded +5, Insightful! And so it begins.
And you'll see you said the same thing I did.
Two broadbad users don't need Vonnage for VOIP.
There's been VOIP for quite a while before Vonnage. If everyone had VOIP they'd pay $40 bucks for software, and another $40 for a headset.
Only the technically challenged would PAY somebody else, every month, for the privelege of using an internet connect that they already pay a monthly fee for.
You pay Vonnage for the interface to the phone system, that's their only real product(beside software and VOIP hardwired handset).
People always try to fit legislative issues some kind of logical context. It just doesn't work because the goal of most legislation isn't to do or define something logically. The goals are usually to manage taxation revenues or to try and influence some macroeconomic aspect of the economy. They want to legislate VoIP to raise tax revenues and/or support an industry that has voting clout. It doesn't matter that bits are bits.
If a company's primary business is to provide voice/pots type service, then they are going to have to cough up an pay to play.
Sorry, that's just the way it is. Somebody has to pay the freight to maintain the local loop infrastructure/plant.
Primative, unreliable voip through the computer is probably another story altogether.
The other option is to treat all computer connections the same as POTS, and that will kill the internet goose.
Eventually, one way or the other these issues will have to be hashed out, but I can't see that coming soon, not until we establish a unified national plan that ties in Cell, Cable, Satellite, Internet and traditional.
I can see the fighting/mergers that will make that possible, sure.
Vince doesn't have any monopoly on vision, just a big name from a past event.
I don't drive, and I've never filled a tank, so I've never thought about the gas tax.
/. stereotype, and I was just itching to pounce on the freeloading atmosphere amongst some here. The rest of my point still stands :)
I read the original comment through the lens of a
it is not unlimited long distance
tax revenue. The gov't is missing their share. Have you ever looked at your phone bill? Outside of long-distance, it's taxed at about 20%. The gov't would absolutely freak if 50 million American internet users went completely VoIP tomorrow. 50 million. The FCC would have to cut headcount, funding. The local Public Utilities Commissions in each state would have less funding, and less need to be around. The gov't makes this country run. Remember the east coast power outage? After the outage, the gov't reported that the gov't lost billions in tax revenue, and that this needed to be stopped. Remember the Florida "LAN tax" under consideration? Before this is over, we'll have a special tax on LAN switch ports (access charge), use tax (per byte), and "per seat taxes" (members of household or employees). Believe me, some politician looking to "leave their legacy" will propose this stuff. They'll then turn it around and say that the money will be used to promote national broadband deployment. Baloney.
-- No sig for you!
> that I don't want or need so other people can use it?
... or eat, sleep, crap, do anything. Try, instead, looking up "infrastructure" and seeing what it says.
Nice. You can pretty much rely on the fact that creation and delivery of every product in the land, has relied on at least one phone call, and use of the transportation system. So what you are saying is that you have no need for food, clothes, shelter, sewerage system, consumer goods, or even the device you posted from.
Tell you what - don't pay for it - don't use the phone
Getting rid of a type of taxes doesn't have to mean getting rid of that tax money. You'd up one tax, assuming you need the money, when abolishing another. Then the tax burden would, mainly, be one large number. You'd have sticker shock, but you'd also have an honest answer about what government costs you.
It would be worth getting rid of many types of taxes and having only income tax and cost-of-service taxes, such as a tax on gasoline to pay for roads, etc.
Once people saw how much tax they were paying in a no-nonscense way, they'd be better enabled to do something about it. Why do we have to pay upwards of 70% of our income, in one way or another, to the government? Do we really need to pay for everything we're paying for?
I hate to say it, but Vint never really did understand the Internet.
Yes, VoIP is a distinctive service, and regardless of the fact that it's married to packet media, it should be regulated the same as landline or cellular service.
However, that means that the regulations need to be modified to understand that some "carriers" will be individuals running their own connection service from their own houses and various switching services will be operated without the switch operator having any idea whether the traffic is TCP or VoIP.
For a small business, or as a second line, something like Vonage is great. This needs to be fostered, not taxed, for the time being. Right now, I wouldn't be willing to pay a tax on Vonage because I don't get plain old telephone-style reliability guarantees - that's what you trade off for the bargain. Of course, the real problem is the reliability of the internet infrastructure and last mile broadband connections, which generally are just terrible (especially with DSL, which I finally just dumped in favor of cable). You just can't get reliable service over an unreliable medium.
I'm willing to pay all these taxes, if and only if I get real reliability and uptime guarantees (for less than 200 dollars a month, which is what these fucking thieves want to charge you for business DSL service).
VoIP is only for TRISEXUALS.
The richest people in America don't pay anything like 70% of their money to the government. Neither do the poor. Neither does ANYONE. The U.S. has some of the lowest tax rates of any first-world country. Where do you get a figure like 70%? I paid MAYBE 25% of my total income to the government last year, including income taxes, sales tax, gas taxes (which are not nearly high enough), etc.
"Destroy science and religion. Science would re-emerge exactly the same; but not religion." - Penn Jillette, paraphrased
Packet switching in the next few years will begin to phase out 5ESS Switching which is the major standard today along with DMS 1000 by Nortel and other Motorola landline switches. With the full adoption of IPv6 your telephone # will be mapped to your phone's IP adddress to allow voice over packet data which is similar to VoIP.
Dont tax the phone company, broadband provider or VOIP co.
Tax whoever owns the copper wires (ultimatly you are paying them some kind of line rental fee anyway)
For example, if you have Vonage VoIP over Covad DSL over Verizon lines, you pay Covad for the DSL service. Covad then pays (or mabie you pay directly, I dont know exactly how it works in america since I dont live there) Verizon for the copper wire.
Therefore, you pay Verizon (directly or indirectly) and Verizon pays the tax to the government.
i.e. move away from taxing those who provide phone service and start taxing those who actually carry that phone service.
Even if you run all Linux, etc. at home, Think of the workplaces and all the offices you have to deal with. What if MS suddenly decides to add DRM to everything on it and stop access by 'blanks' ?
What if your electric company decides to just triple your rate?
Unless you're among the select few, your power is insignificant compared to a big business.
My understanding of VoIP is that it still requires the last mile switch solution. If AT&T uses VoIP in their backbone, it's transparent to the end user, but they're still required to be regulated. Why should a startup that uses the same network, but calls it the internet, get away without following regulations. The same rules should apply to everyone.
Vote for Pedro
The argument for taxing voip termination to local pots lines (which is the only argument) will only be a point for contention while the services find it necessary to interface with the POTS system. Convergence and ubiquitous broadband connections with QOS (as in business service) will greatly reduce that need in the future.
(1) All internet services depend on a local termination be it Cable, DSL, T1, dialup. (excepting Satellite)
(2) Most internet traffic terminates through POTS. AOL, MSN, etc....
(3) Industry growth needs and lack of jurisdiction has thwarted regulation for the past decade plus for the internet!
The argument that the internet need not be taxed so that it could grow and also develop laws/jurisdiction for regulation stood and is still standing. Vonage and VOIP is still in it's infancy and could use the decade plus to establish the VOIP market and technology. The fear of loosing monopoly has Baby Bells shaking in their boots. Hey all services combined don't account for 100,000 users!
Whether it replaces POTS or emerges as a value added independent service VOIP is here to stay. Instead of influencing the killing/regulating/taxing the hell out of it's competition the not so baby Bell's should start to offer some of the advantages that these services offer. They all use SS7 switches so they could offer most of the same services. The ability to do the same things Vonage/Voiceplus/packet8 offer is within the technology they currently utilize. How hard is it to offer an addition of an IP phone (soft and or hard) to your already existing number and account? One that stays and one that travels! All the features (3way, voicemail, fowarding, etc) are included by default with the SS7. Bell's turn them off so that they can charge you to add them back (at no cost to them)! Instead of fighting off VOIP these deep pocketed companies could repeat this globally. Verizon could be "Verizon Global".
Once line termination to POTS is no longer an issue (5-7yrs?) SIP "hosts" can move offshore and provide global forwarding services (FreeWorldDialup) stepping outside the bounds of national regulation. With the emergence of multiple points of internet access (SAT, WiFi, GPRS/3-4G smartphones, Cable, Telco, "power", FTTH, wireless, etc.) redundancy and QOS won't be much of an issue. As to 911, it's really not that serious... when cosumer demand calls for a certain non buggy 911, it will be provided. For under $7 per hardware device the system could use the same chips that are used in cell phones to provide location services. The chips w/protocols could be added to legacy equipment via USB. The SIP protocol or Stack could be altered to include this on all or just 911 calls. As for wire taps well the FBI, NSA, CIA, and whoever else wants to bug you will soon be fighting a loosing race to encrypted calls. With identity theft and financial fraud on the rise, cosumer's will move in droves to the easiest and most permanent fix.
VOIP providers are no more "free loaders" than Internet service providers. Hell, before you start to agrue that these huge bells might like to push the regulatory bulls to trample competition, the market will force them to again lower the prices and add more services.
For those crying Pay to POTS, the tarriff system no longer reflects the industry and the technology. When the Big Boys start to "phone phreak" (MCI, Sprint...) it's time for a change to reflect the current/future environment.
And if you ask me, the Bells (whom I work for) should have been broken up leaving the POTS system as a stand alone national company. Maybe even municipal like the water/sewage system. But hey thats another argument.
Case in point, the old sytem is changing fast and taxing this infant technology is premature. You rugged capitalists should know that market forces, both consumer and commercial will tame this baby beast. Baby Bells should take the bull by the horns and upgrade their offerings. Intralla fees are dead, Interlata (toll) is dying, and Internationa
That was some funny shit there KFG. Thanks.
--Greg
The other reason is that the socialist experiment would end if all of those taxes could not be collected by the Telcos.
I dont know about everyone else, but I already pay franchise fees and local, state, and federal taxes for my broadband connection. They want to additional taxes for a service that I subscribe to on the Net? Well, then lets tax those who buy music online too! Lets tax every other service available on the Internet that people subscribe to as well. Voice over IP is just another service like any other on the net, and I dont feel I should be taxed any different for that service than for any other.
Hey, watch the language, or I'll slap you around like the little bitch you are
It was a off-the-cuff figure, but it seems somewhat reasonable. The US is on the low end of this, but many countries charge a fair bit more. I've seen a stufy saying that in the US and Canada you pay aproximately double what your income tax is, once you count all the taxes and tariffs and hidden costs.
I don't know what US income tax rates are, but in Canada 30% is fairly low-middle tax bracket. That'd mean we'd pay 60%, at a minimum, to the government.
Anyways, the point is that if that, be it 40%, or 70%, was assessed in one large lump payment, we'd have an honest accounting of our finances and perhaps we'd do something about the tax burden. This is the argument for on-the-top sales taxes, they let you know every time you're buying something, how much you're giving to the government, instead of hiding it.
On Microsoft: Enforce the laws!!
On mass copyright infringement (er, file sharing): Don't enforce the laws!!