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Vonage Starts Charging 'Regulatory Recovery Fee'
slavitos writes "Vonage
sent an email announcing that starting with
'your next billing cycle, Vonage will begin to charge a Regulatory Recovery Fee of $1.50 per phone number. This is a fee that Vonage charges its customers to recover required costs of Federal and State Universal Service Funds as well as other related fees and surcharges. State and Federal agencies collect these fees from communications providers to fund public projects such as rural and library communications programs.' That could mean that Vonage is losing at least some ground in its battle against government VOIP regulations."
Vonage is different from IM and voice chat because it interconnects with the PSTN and thus Vonage counts as a phone company.
the unlimited Long Distance plan dropped today from $40 / month to $35 / month, the local plan dropped a buck from $26 to $25. Now I know why
I haven't gotten any emails yet, but I'm not surprised. I'm still waiting for them to get their act together in terms of getting my existing phone number transferred (The fax I sent them magically appeared when I threatened to end my patronage).
They seem to be so severely understaffed it makes my head spin. I have twice now sat on hold for over a half hour - at which point I am allowed to leave a message instead of speak to a real human being.
They clearly know their limitations, though, when I called to complain about how long it was taking to get my service up and running, they credited me a month before I could even launch into my bitch. All I could say was "habidah, whosiwhah, zibit.. I'm buying you a pizza!"
Finally, if their site stands up to the slashdot effect I'll be shocked to the core, as it's slow to begin with. I wonder if their VOIP has to make heavy use of their servers or if its more direct. If Slashdot can interrupt my phone service, I'll be ticked!
- Vonage gets sued to oblivion by phone companies
...
- People start using P2P VoIP phone applications en masse
- Phone companies start sending out subpoenas to ISPs to discover the real name/addresses of these evil phone call thieves.
- Phone companies sue 12 year old girl who was calling his grandfather and ask $15000 per stolen phone call
- Phone companies say VoIP technology is full of kiddie porn
Deja vu anybody ?
"A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of" - Ogden Nash
If telephone service used GNU/PhoneService, it would be robust, it would almost never crash, it would be very reliable and fast and you could use it with many different kinds of hardware.
On the other hand, the interface would be terrible, like people would have to remember long cryptic numbers in order to use it.
I don't need a signature.
and lifeline service/universal access, rural telephone services and library connectivity to the 'net couldn't possibly be ways to "improve things using technology?"
not tax the improvements so much that they're not improvements anymore
$1.50/mo scarcely seems so crushing a burden
I know it is an unpopular view to maintain, but VonAge IS a phone company, they market themselves as a phone company, they provide the same services as a phone company, so they should pay the same fees and treated like other phone companies.
Just because they are use a different pipe into the home than a traditional telco should not exclude them from complying with the same rules and regulations a telco has to abide by.
If you don't like the rules VonAge has to live with, then attack the regulations themselves that apply to all phone companies.
VonAge is decidedly different than "voice" features in IM programs, or even outbound only low priced LD services. VonAge provides full featured, two way phone service. You get a phone number, people can call you if they are not on the Internet, and you can call people not on the Internet.
They've gotten a free ride long enough.
Other services are quite different. IM programs communicate between computers, or in some cases the computer user contacts a phone # somewhere. Other servicse provide out-bound only network to phone features. And so on. Each of these provides _some_ functionality of phone service, but not the full package. Thus, they should not get hit with telco regs or fees.
It could be argued that out-bound network to phone long distance services could be considered a long distance carrier and should comply with those regulations -- but that would all depend on the details of the service provided. A blanket generalized statement would cause more harm than good.
One thing further, if these services are considered telcos, then they should also be given common carrier status. If not, then they should not be considered a common carrier. If they are not a common carrier, then it opens them up to all kinds of legal nightmares, responsibility for content/control, possible liability, and more. You'd think they'd want to be a common carrier. They should not be allowed to claim "common carrier" and be excluded from phone company regulations.
. 62,400 repetitions make one truth -- Brave New World, Aldous Huxley