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Will FCC Regulate Internet Phone Calls?
Ridgelift writes "The FCC will begin hearings on Monday December 1st to see if they will get involved in regulating calls placed over the internet. Since a federal court in Minnesota ruled a month ago that calls delivered over the Internet are not subject to state regulation, Qwest, Verizon and SBC have all announced their intention to deliver more calls over their data networks. "The stakes in the debate are huge. Federal and state governments could lose billions of dollars in revenue from regulatory fees if calls moved onto the Internet are no longer subject to the charges.""
Well, let's see... the Federal Government is in charge of deciding whether to regulate it... and the Federal Government stands to lose billions in revenue if they don't regulate it...
Well, I'm sure they will do the right thing.
If there is something they can tax, they will..
Just a matter of when, and how much.. not IF..
---- Booth was a patriot ----
"The stakes in the debate are huge. Federal and state governments could lose billions of dollars in revenue from regulatory fees if calls moved onto the Internet are no longer subject to the charges."
What will they do? Anyone venture a guess?
I would go out on a limb to say that the FCC would continue to try and not dabble in the internet's affairs.
Besides which, this medium should be free from government regulation, revenue loss or not.
I have two cell phones and a regular phone. Why in the hell would I want to use the internet to place a phone call? Sure, it's cheaper, I guess, but it's impractical. I know that third world countries use this method because it is WAY cheaper than using a real phone or phone card, but does the rest of the world really care? Are THAT many people using the internet that the government(s) stand to lose BILLIONS of dollars?
"Jeremy, you need to get to an internet cafe and cut and paste some appropriate sentiments about me from the world wide
How could one possibly even detect phone calls? It's not as simple as in the "old, analog" world where it's like there's a phone line, that means there're phone calls.
An internet connection is used for many other tasks (be it web browsing or email or whatever) and one can certainly encrypt and/or hide phone calls so they aren't "visible" as phone calls anymore but just look like usual internet traffic.
Beer is proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy. -- Benjamin Franklin
And just how would they enforce any such regulation? VoIP is basically just a program running over existing networks. Cell phones not withstanding, you can no more require charges to be paid than you could charge for email or instant messaging. It's just a communications protocol!
Dyolf Knip
Thanks to some great suggestions by people previously on slashdot I have completely switched to VoIP for my phone service. It rocks.
Previously I had not switched because I was scared of losing 911 service. However, if you have wire running into your house, you can still pick up and dial 911--even without service!
So we have our emergency land-line phone--for free. Now we are using VoIP for everything else.
However, if VoIP starts getting taxes to death, then people like me will switch to something else... and then something else...
Can't the government just stay off these new industries long enough for them to get started?
Well, as telephones started becoming more and more a part of daily life, the systems that they ran on became taxed by the government. I see no reason why the government won't do the same with the Internet. Let's just hope that they do it intelligently (wishful thinking, I know).
Learn from other people's mistakes, you don't have time to make them all on your own.
This is all nice and all but how the hell are they going to regulate this exactly? Sure it might be easy to target companies like Vonage but what do you do with all the free services out there like Skype or Free World Dialup?
"Federal and state governments could lose billions of dollars in revenue..." ...of which could made up if we spent an ounce less on military funding.
Tax it when it taps into the PSTN.
We can't decrease the amount of money the government extorts from us for a change?
"And if the FCC chooses not to regulate Internet calls, it could raise questions about the future of the Universal Service Fund, a $6 billion federal program funded by telephone fees that subsidizes phone service in rural areas and Internet service for schools."
.. govt. will declare all kinds of things illegal so they can get their tax $$ of internet phone calls. (Banning encryption, banning cryptic realtime communications protocols, banning instant messenger etc. etc.)
What? I was under the impression the money went towards beer, pot, and hookers.
Sorry. Get money for the beer elsewhere, or somehow else. Maybe tax overall internet access. Gosh I hate that idea too but it's better than the idea of specific services being monitored and/or taxed. Otherwise it'll lead to a mess
We'll tap into the PSTN up in that big white northern coutry known as Canada. Black market canadian VOIP, wahoo!
Do you consider universal affordable phone service to be a social good worth paying for?
That goal of universal phone service is possible only because of the current system of regulation. Regulation is an unfortunate term. It is really a system whereby telephone subscribers in populus areas subsidize subcribers in more rural areas. Regulation allows phone providers a consistent rate of return on their capital investment while keeping rates down for everyone.
What stops them from "regulating" online conferencing, telephony (such as Skype), etc? That seems practically impossible unless the government starts monitoring the internet. Is it only going to involve telephones? What, really, seperates a telephone system (a traditional one) and a computer w/ a microphone?
Oh, but of course, the government doesn't understand it's own creation-- the internet. I think we've all seen that enough already...
---
Never criticize religion on Slashdot. You will be modded down for "Troll" no matter how factual it is.
echo "Got Worms?"|voip 866-PC-SAFETY
MoFscker
It's -1, Karma Whore. That site doesn't require registration. Amazing what people will mod up these days.
I don't know the specifics of the law, but from what I know about the FCC it was founded to regulate wide area transmissions right? Anything to do with radio that passes over public land.
/. readers of how many times we gave those servers beatings for matrix and LOTR trailers) Either they use magic, or their network has more bandwidth than a bittorrent.
Most of the internet now is not publically owned. AOL/Time Warner has some of the nicest backbones in existance (I don't think I need to remind avid
Which causes me to say, what gives the goverment the right to go after a company like AOL if they started providing phone services to it's subscription base. As long as AOL allowed other IP telephony providers to route calls into their networks, which was the community based resource sharing it's creators invisioned, then in essence it is a wide area transmission. If a node goes out, it reroutes.
It's a paradox. We can't have our cake and eat it too and unfortunately for most of John Q Public in the US, the goverment wants to be able to have evidence collecting power. We want privacy and we want a goverment that can defend us from scumbag corporations at the same time.
I think the FCC is a lone tomato rotting in the sun, skin blistering with flys buzzing about it, who's smell of decomposition just barely singes your nose. Regulation did not bring the consumer choice, which is why when deregulation came about the choice in phone service providers skyrocketed.
It's proof that less goverment involvement in phone providers results in better consumer choice. I for one am totally for letting any company do this.
This news is sort of old hat though, since many companies i've worked for over the years had IP based telephony for connecting calls between offices. I know a lot of the insanely big (like AOL/Time warner) have to use IP traffic for their voice data. Cisco does for sure.
There apparently will be several live feeds available of the hearing tomorrow for those away from their TVs.
Nothing is black or white. If there is something they can tax, they will.., as long as they don't get their heads handed to them. Many U.S. states have no sales tax whatsoever. That dosen't fit your nice little theory. Certainly not all consumer goods are taxed. Every road you drive on isn't a toll road.
If you haven't fallen asleep yet, you might want to read an article on taxation. Accuracy not guarenteed, but hey, it's free and it's mostly accurate.
IIRC, phone taxes historically were created two support the poor (as phones were eventually determined to be a basic service that should be available to all) and later to support the 911 emergency location service.
I would be willing to support the frugal application of these two taxes to internet phone usage, except a little more broadly: 911 service given to anyone with an internet connection, and additional phone taxes to cover the cost of providing basic internet connections to the poor.
There may be additional taxes required to regulate the industry (support the FCC a tiny bit, etc) so companies don't completely fleece consumers.
But in the end, the reality is that phone service is so cheap, and internet service so cheap, that to complain about an additional $1/month or less in taxes is being petty.
What? It's $7.00 per month? Well then, fight to the death for your $82/year!
Of course the real issue is that the internet allows anyone to become a phone company overnight, even offshore, so collecting such taxes is going to be practically impossible. Best to go to the local ISPs, turn them into basic phone service providers put a small tax on the internet (flat rate per line/connection regardless of usage or bandwidth) and get rid of the concept of a 'phone company' or 'cable company'. You have connection providers and content providers. Levy the 911 and subsistance tax on the connection. Cellular providers will simply become ISPs, each cell phone a computer, the 'line' between counting as one internet connection. Each person will typically have 2-5 lines (cell, office, home, etc) Since content providers must have a connection, then they too will be taxed. Anyone can become a content provider.
3) Profit!
-Adam
How will they track this, and how will they be able to determine if people are cheating?
OK, so they decide to regulate and tax Voice routed over IP. What about Voice routed over IP routed over some other sort of IP protocol disguised to not look like voice? What about Voice over IP routed through relays in Canada? What if two people are doing VoIP but then claiming "what, this isn't a phone conversation, we're just streaming each others talk radio streaming mp3 stations to each other."
This could become fascinating. We would wind up with this sort of caste structure being created among internet protocols, where this stream of bytes is okay and anonymous but THIS stream of bytes, the government needs to know about it and it needs to be taxed.. just because the latter set of bytes happens to contain audio data of a certain sort. So far the internet has avoided anything of that sort; certain classes of *content* have been differentiated from one another in a regulatory fashion, but never before a class of *data*.
Soon we may wind up with something where the proverbial "Joe Sixpack" pays relatively high fees on his Skype phone he bought at Wal-mart and plugged into the wall, while all the "techies" pay nothing to use their "alternative" VoIP setups. Meanwhile a bizarre cat and mouse game goes on, as the authorities complain about "speech piracy" and attempt to find ways to sniff out VoIP data or prevent "pirate" VoIP programs from connecting to the larger VoIP network, and the tech community comes up with increasingly elaborate ways to keep the authorities to notice what sort of data exactly it is that they're sending.
In the meanwhile, the ongoing effort by router companies to make "smart" routers capable of identifying things like streaming media packets and handling them in a slightly more intelligent manner is scuttled-- because 80% of all streaming audio data no longer looks like streaming audio data.
Anyone have a link to the RAT_PENIS.TXT story?
Irritable, left-wing and possibly humorous bumper stickers and t-shirts
I will be very curious to see how they regulate a voice communication that I encrypt and send to my friend in Australia. While they might be able to regulate the companies and devices produced commercially, data protected by a layer of encryption is untouchable.
Can the existing network infrastructure handle the additional bandwidth that would be demanded, if significant, by VoIP?
How exactly does all of this work? It seems like the existing analog infrastructure would remain in place. After all, asking everyone to replace their existing handsets isn't going to happen anytime soon. Now the phone company will A/D my speech, then send it out directing it to another server local to the number that I dialed, which will D/A my speech and reproduce it for the ear of a person in another home?
If the above is true, it seems that it would make sense for some additional offering from the phone company that would eliminate the A/D portion of the communication and the phone line to your house would become a broadband connection. Make the handset perform the Voice-->IP conversion with embedded software, and I can ditch my dial-up ISP...
When telephone calls went from copper to fibre did the rules change? No. So why should the rules change because the calls are going over IP?
Engineering is the art of compromise.
I mean, how can they control my internet phone usage? Almost everyone who has a higher bandwidth connection can use the right software to make phone calls. Can anyone give a clue?
Those who are possessed by nothing, possess everything. Morihei Uyeshiba
> Face it folks, the government is only
> going to get bigger. It ALWAYS has, and
> it ALWAYS will.
Until there is some overwhelming tide of public action, like the Boston Tea Party or some other revolution or war.
What's wrong with real communism? Look at The Communism.org FAQ under "science vs. bullshit", Mr. Bullshit. =P
-insert a witty something-
And there are no free calls in that lot. We have a huge 22 cents per excess Megabyte on ADSL. Regulate, but just be aware that you will drive some to private point to point microwave dishes, or lay their own fibre (service duplication). Best leaving this one alone.
Well lets see. Technically they're only charging fees so that they have the ability to do their regulation thing right? But they don't need to regulate. So why do they need the fees?
(I know the answer, I'm just making a point)
Well done on spelling "Tax" and "Dollars" correctly. I can see you have the right priorities!
welcome our new voip-taxing overlords.
Encryption within P2P can easily prevent "authorities" from knowing what kind of data is being transferred, so it's a non-issue!
If I receive no reward for my hard labor, then why should I slave away? Better yet, maybe I should just sit on my ass and let everyone else do the work. Either way, a communistic government will still give me the same...right? Oh, but I forgot. Everyone else would prolly be thinking the same way as I am. Thus, no one would be working their ass off and everyone would end up having a shitty lifestyle.
On the other hand, capitalism takes the selfish aspect of human nature and spins it into a positive way of life for the all of society. I'll take the all might buck-in-hand thank you very much.
Life is not for the lazy.
Federal and state governments could lose billions of dollars in revenue from regulatory fees if calls moved onto the Internet are no longer subject to the charges.
You can't lose what you don't have. What they mean is they will have less to steal from.
The article highlights what I and other math teachers have been arguing for some time now. Technology is no substitute for deep understanding, and that the basics, such as tables and arithmetic skills are as essential for success in math are the alphabet and spelling for success in english.
My question is this [and it may be a stupid one, i realize]: if the federal government is allowed to tax er, ahem, "regulate" VoIP, doesnt that open up other web-based systems to taxes as well? There has been discussion about small fees per email, or per page view. If VoIP is suddenly taxable, then isnt all data transmitted via a networking protocol suddenly fair game? Am I going to have to pay on a per-ping basis?
Gentlemen, you can't fight in here! This is the War Room!
Those of us who feel strongly about this should watch the webcast or attend in person. Be sure to submit your comments to the FCC afterwards.
It's your government. If you think regulating VOIP is a bad idea, let it know.
Usually, only the big companies and their lawyers take part in this process, but we all have the right to take part and let our opinions be known.
Now that there is finally a chance to realize the promised "competitive phone carriers", the monolithic tariff model applied to the monopoly telcos needs revision. This was discussed in more detail in "P2P fees instead of invasive C/S tax". "Telephony" need not be monopolized to be regulated as an essential service. But its taxation model must be revised to account for its new financial landscape. Especially during the transition that is now upon us, with wireless/mobile and VoIP/open service models, consumers must be protected from the failed risks not/taken by the incumbent and emerging telcos. If administered sensibly, the new system will provide more economic efficiency and scalability. Qualitative hurldles like untested, centralized microtaxation and superfluous "competition" requirements combine with reckless growth and incompetent market entries to doom the wellbeing of people who will increasingly depend on the communications. If you contact your representatives with organized, friendly geek insights, they might be prepared to represent you in the face of the new telcos and their armies of lobbyists.
--
make install -not war
Sorry...that was $6,000 PER MONTH on long distance
[RIAA] says its concern is artists. That's true, in just the sense that a cattle rancher is concerned about its cattle.
The FCC has no authority to regulate what kinds of data are being exchanged over the internet. I am sure that the democratic majority of us, the people, does not want to have the FCC regulate the internet in any way. Therefore, you better keep your corrupt and dirty hands off our beloved internet, you dirty FCC buerocrats, or we will resort to more stealthy methods of communication over the internet.
----BEGIN LONG ESSAY, SEE POST ABOVE----
Sometimes, people change the world in ways they don't intend. Upton Sinclair did just that with his 1906 novel The Jungle, widely remembered for the uproar its vivid descriptions of the unsanitary conditions in the meatpacking industry caused. However, Sinclair's true intention in The Jungle was to convert the reader to socialism, an economic system largely superior to the capitalist system that still rules America today.
Many people dismiss Sinclair's argument immediately because they know of the sad fate of the Soviet Union and other communist nations. First of all, communism is a more extreme form of socialism; not all socialists are communists. The corrupt governments of these nations and their suppression of all opposition resulted in them never truly becoming communistic, nor even socialistic. Another concern people have about the idea is that it will erase democracy, but this results from the misconception that it is a political theory; in fact, the socialist method deals mainly with economics. Therefore, the two theories are not necessarily mutually exclusive.
As with every group, the socialists don't all agree on everything, but there is, of course, the common belief that makes them one: a|a Socialist believes in the common ownership and democratic management of the means of producing the necessities of life, anda|that the means by which this is to be brought about is the class conscious political organization of the wage-earners. (Upton Sinclair, The Jungle, p. 336) In other words, the industries that make basic goods, like food, pencils, and so on, will be owned in common and used for the good of everyone. Thus, Sinclair's argument is actually a very high application of democracy.
In contrast to socialism, capitalism focuses on private ownership and looking after one's own self. In it, corporations or private individuals make the things that everyone needs, and their competition with each other results in lower prices and quality goods. However, corporations have displayed a tendency to organize against the consumer and form trusts or cartels in order to raise prices, lower quality, or impose arbitrary terms to everyone. The Jungle railed against the Beef Trust in particular, with descriptions of the unsanitary conditions in its factories, the way the foods were adulterated, and ...all the miracles of chemistry which they performed, giving to any sort of meat, fresh or salted, whole or chopped, any color and any flavor and any odor they chose. (p. 133) Modern companies have displayed similarly underhanded behavior. For example, the music industry is now suing its customers and pursuing draconian legislation in an attempt to keep itself alive in the face of new technology for music distribution, all while cheating the consumer by gouging prices on many albums.
Socialism does away with the exploitation of the population by corporations because it allows the workers themselves to own their workplaces. This results in the death of the corporation, whose sole purpose for existing is to shelter its owners from legal entanglements. However, many interpret this to mean that everyone would be paid the same. Sinclair answers:
-insert a witty something-
They either should remove taxes from my DSL bill OR from phone bill, because right now I pay two sets of taxes. They're trying to eat with two spoons, and this is not the prettiest way to eat, especially if someone feeds you. The fella giving you money may decide you're too greedy and cut off your food supply for good.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A200 32-2003Nov28.html
This is insane. Telecommunications carriers routing phone calls over the internet. This article doesn't even touch upon several issues.
1) Local companies can deliver long distance service (by passing Federal Regulation).
2) Quality of service.
3) Higher rates
4) More profits for the Telco's and higher rates for users.
Let me illustrate. The fees on your bill pay for the telecommunications infrastructure, in part by flat fee on your bill, taxes and some gets taken from each phone call. Now based on this premise, all companies will be routing over the internet. The possible/probable affects will be:
1) distortion on phone calls because traffic is high on the internet.
2) broken speech on calls
3) try calling 911 and have your speech broken up so that the other side cant hear you.
4) higher rates for everyone. Guess what, we all have to pay for the telecommunications network. Now the gov will not be making as much money for supporting the network. To maintain it their will be a raise in rates. Guess who's rates are going to be raised? Flat rate, taxes and per call usage. But what about all the money that the Telco's are making from this cost savings maneuver? That cannot be touched because it was not made on the regulated side of the house.
Now the telecommunications companies will not be governed by the FCC on phone calls. The FCC is the guardian that keeps the Telco's in check. Now there will be no check. Great, unregulated telecommunications companies.
In the end, I believe the debate isn't about regulating VoIP technology, but rather guaranteeing government tax revenues. Several people have pointed out how difficult it will be to properly identify voice calls and collect taxes from overseas companies offering voice services. So if the services this tax is being collected for, 911, rural access, etc, are considered basic services that the government should provide...then why not support them through the normal IRS personal income tax system? That might mean an apparent tax increase come April when people file, but then again, they are paying it already, it just hides on their phone bill so they are less likely to notice it.
As soon as we can eliminate the need to jump from the data network over to the old depricated voice network, then we can do all voice on an IP to IP basis, with encryption. That can help eliminate one of the big nasty problems in progressing in technology: politicians trying to stick their fingers in it.
now we need to go OSS in diesel cars
The US government will probably place a tax on the internet connection point i.e. like a federal line rental.
Basicly, pertty much the entire population has:
A.a regular phone line
or B.a broadband line
and 1.a regular PSTN phone
or 2.a VOIP phone
Currently, the regulation is applied to phones not to lines.
When you get a phone line or a broadband line, you pay some money each month to the provider (e.g. covad, verizon, SBC, Qwest etc).
Basicly, the solution is that anyone who has a broadband line or a phone line gets the payment added to the monthly fee (i.e. you pay the tax on the line not on the phone or the calls).
Its a good solution since it doesnt matter how the calls are transmitted, the state still gets its tax.
What your essay reflects was basically the life and culture of America before the 1920s. Nowdays, our government has become more involved with corporate activity that the "system" of free enterprise (Capitalism) is no longer as effective as it use to be. There is no denying the fact that some government involment is necessary to prevent expoitation of the people. But, it's involment is getting so bad it's now riddled with corruption. So no matter how you slice it, bigger government = bad government. Socialism, Capitolism...it doesnt matter. Once the momentium of government getting bigger get's rolling. Oppression starts to rear it's ugly head.
Life is not for the lazy.
I do not know how the government will tax this, but I am certain that it will not be well thought out or fair. It will be decided by who gets the most money and/or has the best lobby. In both cases, the average citizen will lose. This is how capitalism works: extract the most money you can from everyone. Kind of like a vacation at Disneyland without the fun.
Welcome back!
Oh, and. .
Are people 'terrorists' if they become sickened with corporate/government leeches? Of course not, but that won't stop the Powers That Be from getting nervous when the masses start to steam with indignation. This is the reason for the push to remove freedoms and create a police state; fear of reprisal from the masses who are getting hurt and bled worse every day. This, and nothing more. Anybody who believes otherwise is a chump.
-FL
I would recommend that anyone who is interested in understanding the intricacies of providing a telco-equivalent level of service to a residential user in an IP environment should take a look at the specifications at www.packetcable.com/specifications/. PacketCable(TM) is the cable industry's set of standards for providing telephone service over broadband. As you will see, doing VoIP properly is not quite as simple as some people seem to believe.
There are (of course) other ways of doing telephony over IP, but this set of specifications is free and easy to download, and the documents do give the interested a reader a good idea of the kinds of issues that have to be addressed.
VoIP is just a TCP connection, right? So in general is it even feasible to regulate (i.e., tax) VoIP separately?
If so, this brings up the interesting question of regulating other kinds of TCP traffic. Given things like VPN and SSH, it can be exceedingly difficult to even discover what sort of traffic is carried on a TCP connection. If my employer requires that I set up a VPN link to work, and I happen to have a phone plugged into my computer that uses the VPN to make work calls, how do the regulators measure my use of VoIP. It's just some portion of those encrypted packets going over the VPN connection, but that packets also include my vi sessions, rsyncs, ftps, and all the other things that I do as part of my job. Does this proposal mean that I'll be paying voice-line rates for my all-day VPN connection to work?
You might think that a wireless VoIP phone would be an exception that's easy to regulate. But my current cellphone is also a Palm Pilot, and I can and do use it for web access. Currently, voice and http on this phone use different low-level protocols, so they can measure them separately. But with VoIP, the voice and http connections are just TCP. I also work with databases, and much of that work is voice-like in that it has bursts of data alternating in both directions. Will this have the characteristics of VoIP, and thus be regulated/taxed as phone usage?
One possibility is that we'll suddenly find that all TCP connections are considered "voice" and charged extra. But we can probably all imagine the outrage this would produce - especially from people running commercial web sites.
Anyway, it'd be interesting to hear how they're going to sort out the voice sessions from the data sessions, when they're all just TCP connections.
Those who do study history are doomed to stand helplessly by while everyone else repeats it.
I use Vonage and have for about 6 months. I use the data port on my phone to drop it into the exsting phone wiring for the entire apartment. So I can call from the kitchen bedroom etc. The only time I've had problems has been when the virus attacks bogging down the net. You also don't want to be downloading huge file while talking..other than those little issues, we dont need no stinkin regulations...
Aren't the Republicans in control of the government? I thought the Repubs were for less government? This makes no sense! Can a wise republican educate me on why it's a foregone conclusion Repubs will want to tax?
Here's Chairman Mike "the lesser" Powell on the subject, from http://hraunfoss.fcc.gov/edocs_public/attachmatch
There are some big issues still unresolved. The current FCC policies, which are largely supported by the language of the Telecom Act, classify calls made through regulated local telephone companies (VZ, SBC, etc.) as "telephone exchange service" (basically, local) and "exchange access service" (basically, end legs of a toll call). Those have different prices; LD carriers usually pay more for "access". VoIP is sometimes used as a way around that. So it threatens that subsidy mechanism, which is particularly important for rural telephone companies.
So the big questions focus on when does a VoIP call become long distance "access" rather than "local" or ISP-bound "exempt information access" (ISP access dialup calls, for now, are legally classified as not local. but telcos are usually required to treat them as if they were). And if VoIP calls are exempt, when is a call exempt? If AT&T sticks IP headers on the middle of its LD trunks, transparent to the user, does it become exempt? If the trunks are dedicated VoIP circuits? If the calls sound crappy enough?
I'm not sure the FCC is going to come up with any great answers in a hurry, but they have enough problems figuring out what the telephone companies can charge VoIP users without having to worry about messing around with Internet user traffic.
...that the internet is untouchable on taxation--that was the feelgood assumption on the part of American. THis assumption was created by politicians and the media and was fueled by dotcom dollars. It was part of the dotcom propaganda machine. So taxing the internet now is going to be hard for the politicians to do.
eat shiat and bark at the moon
The government only need start charging fees, and then we are really in trouble. Is that the telephone companies true intent? But then again, it would make people responsible for their Internet use..
Just say no to license servers!!
This is dangerously wrong. The local telco is not required to provide you with 911 service if you aren't connected. AFAIK, if you don't have a dialtone, 911 will not work, period.
At least where I live, it's very common for your copper pair to be physically disconnected somewhere upstream. When your neighbor gets a second phone line, they'll use your old pair.
This is the second time I've seen someone make this dangerous claim. I'm as bad as the next slashdotter when it comes to unresearched assertions, but perhaps we should take the life-threatening ones more seriously.
You forgot to condemn SCO.
Those who do study history are doomed to stand helplessly by while everyone else repeats it.
this is bullshit, why does the government need or get any taxes from communications, taxes on comm should be treated like food, you can't tax a basic human right, and in the US speech is a right...
I'm sorry, but if traditional telecom is subject to regulation, VOIP ought to be as well. The current regulatory scheme is set up, to some extent, to use local line charges to subsidize other services, in returns for some profit skimming. If we allow VOIP to bypass the local loop for high margin service (e.g. eliminating access charges for LD calls), then we need to rethink regulation.
When your significant other (or you for that matter) has a heart attack, you want to pick up that phone and call 911 and expect someone to pick you up, not to hear that, sorry, there is network congestion or a DDOS attack on the local router. Somebody has to subsidize telecom services for the poor. Etc.
It is certainly not fair to saddle traditional telecom with burdensome rules while exempting new players. At a minimum, the old players ought to have their regulations lifted. Of course, the slashdot crowd doesn't want that either. That would mean they would be exploiting their monopolies.
I'm pretty sure cell phones don't broadcast GPS. AFAIK they are only able to determine your position relative to the current cell you are using. When you dial 911 with a cell phone, you are just patched through to the nearest E911 call center and there is the fact that you still have to actually dial 911. Of course, two or more cell towers could be used to determine your position more accurately, but then an outside agency would have to be really determined to find you.
Those On-Star systems do use GPS though I think. My father had an incident where the passenger side air bag deployed for no good reason while driving his car and the On-Star operator immediately cut in asking if he was OK. They knew his position exactly.
Even your landline phone does not magically broadcast your GPS coordinates. When you dial (and as above you must dial) 911, your call is again patched through to the appropriate E911 call center, along with your Caller ID information. The E911 center computers correlate the Caller ID info with the records stored for that number in their database and display it for the E911 operator. I do not believe you can block Caller ID for 911 calls as that would sort of defeat their purpose. Again, if a determined outside agency wishes to know where you are or tap your phone, they have much more direct methods than E911 (and with the expansion of FBI powers that was just rammed through Congress, likely they don't even need a court order). But then, you don't have anything to hide, do you citizen? ;-)
However, if you wish, I am having a Giftmas special on little tin foil hats for your phone this month. Only $19.99 (after $50 rebate + tax and S/H). Festive holiday colors!
PS: In reference to your sig... Not to start a language flame war, but like Java, early Packard Bell computers were slow and clunky. As the company matured, they started turning out some pretty decent machines and they had IMHO, perhaps the damn best support web site. You could enter the serial number of any machine they built and find out exactly what was in it when it shipped. Similarly, while not perfect, I kind of think Java has grown up too and is a pretty decent programming language for a wide variety of applications. I wouldn't go trying to program an OS in it though. Everything has it's purpose (except perhaps our Pretender In Chief).
3 Voice over IP applications that a lot of online multiplayer clans use to communicate during matches. The clan I'm part of is from all over the usa. I can also use the same apps to call crosscountry to relaties who also have it setup. The total cost? $50.00 a month, which is my internet bill.
They aren't afraid of the technology itself, they're afraid of losing revenue. In time, the internet will become the de-facto transmission medium for everything; television, voice, music, any kind of media or data. Because of the internet, they can't charge me $30 to call cross country for a few hours. The quality is actually better than the phones too. The baby bells on the old system are dinosaurs; old, slow, can't adapt when a meteor hits and they know it. Besides, I'v been hearing this BS for the past 5 or so years, they aren't going to do anything.
And even if they did, I really can't see how they'll regulate this without opening a can of worms. You can say "voice transmission over ip" but defining it in stricter terms is difficult You can moniter network traffic, but the problem is figuring out how to read the data fields in the packets so that you know it's voice. one set of 1's and 0's can be construed as information for a game while another packet is music, whilst another is a download. Sure, you can identify certain IP addresses and tax based on that, but you're still limited. One company is going to decide it's going to use a completly different protocol based on IP, such as proprietary IP and fool with the regulation that way. After the cat and mouse game has played it's cards, you'll be taxing free speech in order to trap the mouse that is voip.
Candy-Coated Knowledge
Putting it over IP doesn't necessarily make it any cheaper
It is a lot cheaper when the regulations charge huge fees for telco traffic. If the telco's shunt the call volume to internet, they go past not through the government traffic meter.
An example to demonstrate this, is if you had a generator in the back yard. To regulate it, there is a charge for the electricity generated by it going to your own house.
Instead of using only electricity from the plant that all goes through the electric meter, you add a mechanical shaft from the plant to the house and generate some of the power in the house. There is no meter on the shaft, therefore the additional cost of doing it the hard, less reliable way, is offset by the savings by not running it through the meter and paying for the delivery you do yourself on your own lines.
The telco's have the lines. The government taxes the traffic on them. Changing the format and shunting the meter to a less regulated path is where the savings are.
The taxes is why my land line is so expensive. That is why basic cell phone service is competitive with a land line, even though landline infrastructure is much less expensive.
The truth shall set you free!
Let me tell you how it will be
There's one for you, nineteen for me
'cause I'm the taxman, yeah, I'm the taxman
Should five per cent appear too small
Be thankful I don't take it all
'cause I'm the taxman, yeah I'm the taxman
If you drive a car, I'll tax the street,
If you try to sit, I'll tax your seat.
If you get too cold I'll tax the heat,
If you take a walk, I'll tax your feet.
Don't ask me what I want it for
If you don't want to pay some more
'cause I'm the taxman, yeah, I'm the taxman
Now my advice for those who die
Declare the pennies on your eyes
'cause I'm the taxman, yeah, I'm the taxman
And you're working for no one but me
The original poster very clearly said "they will", not "they do".
Many U.S. states have no sales tax whatsoever
Wrong. Not "many". Very few. Six or less, I believe. And I'm not aware of anything that prevents the state from imposing one in the near or distant future, or the federal government from imposing a federal sales tax. Name a state that has removed a sales tax. Okay, now name the states that have added them over the years. It's pretty clear what they will do, given a little time.
Every road you drive on isn't a toll road.
The trend in every state is generally moving towards tolls on roads. The big ones, the busiest ones, and the most expensive ones will come first, obviously. And perhaps heavy users or commercial users are hit first. But it all trickles down. Do you know of many roads that have had tolls added over the years? Okay, now do you know of many roads that have had tolls removed? Tolling roads is a clear trend, in all states. Technology only helps administrate this. Why don't they toll the smaller roads? Infrastructure too expensive. Would they if they could impose a low, fair price and you only paid for the miles you used? Damn straight. Is the technology there that lets them do that? Almost.
If there is something they can tax, they will. Just give them a little time...
If we can get away from "general funds" (and hence, no accountability of where the funds go)it might be a step in the direction of lowering the overall tax burden - by not letting tax money be spend for so many (tax payer un-approved) uses!
Gas taxes, for roads, Airport taxes for airport security, property taxes for schools, police, and fire... if each fund were spend only on what they told us it was for, we'd be fine.
Something old is "complete" (yeah, right), sunset the tax. Something new comes up to spend money on? Put it on the ballot.
Heh, I think LA is still paying .5% sales tax for the 84 Olympics (which, as I recall, actually turned a profit!)
end of nearly off-topic rant
This issue is a bit more complicated than you think.
I know this isn't very in-line with the techie mentality, but I DON'T CARE. If I want to make a phone call, I'll pick up my phone and dial. Sure, I'd want a reasonably cheap rate and choose my carrier accordingly but, as long as it works, I don't give a shit whether it's routed through Madagascar or not. This is between the government and the phone company. I don't have a place in any of it.
I don't think VOIP can guarantee that over ordinary internet with the volume of calls the ordinary telephone system carries.
So the chances are the telcos would like to have channels called internet connections that really aren't (e.g., leasing a fiber in a bundle where other fibers carry internet traffic that can have congestion, and saying it's an internet link and should be free regulatory of taxes or fees, or a packet link with high QOS that functionally amounts to a separate leased line). That would be a big gain. If they lose that ploy, they will scream no fair and try to get all internet traffic regulated, even low-QOS that can't handle significant usable telephone traffic. Then they gain against VOIP competition that might be viable in spite of being bad part of the time, like VOIP over cable TV through cable operators' equipment, meaning calling others also with cable TV might bypass the telco altogether.
As the parent post says, there's no way to check on VOIP vs other data when it's going through a VPN (which business branches would be smart to use in any case to talk privately). But there could be way to monitor bulk traffic contracts with QOS guarantees, which IWT would be necessary for the telco's to use VOIP in any significant way -- at least until channels are so fast you don't need any guarantees.
Of course, I suppose that will give an incentive to let congestion punish people using ordinary connections for VOIP, by not routing low-QOS through non-busy high-QOS links, so they can sell premium service.
Feh, the whole thing should be a subsidized commons like the road system.
Federal and state governments could lose billions of dollars in revenue from regulatory fees if calls moved onto the Internet are no longer subject to the charges.
Bizzaro Slashdot:Individual tax payers and stockholders of tax-paying corporations could gain billions of dollars now lost to federal and state governments if calls moved onto the internet are no longer subject to regulatory fees.
How about just sticking to the the facts without injecting a pro-government bias? Taxation is neither a net loss nor a gain of wealth. Taxation is a transfer of wealth.When you portray tax reductions as loss you are not telling us facts. You are telling us your opinion. You are telling us that you think lower taxation is bad. You want government officials to control wealth. Lower taxes are a loss, in your opinion , becasue you lose what you want : control by government. Objectively there is neither loss not gain. The wealth is still there, but some other group (the tax payers) control it instead of government officials.
Ceci n'est pas une signature.
Quite frankly, I think the subsidies for rural telephone is a myth that AT&T perpetuated to keep its monopoly. "We need a monopoly so we can rob Peter with the justification of maybe paying Paul."
Farming is big business, if there was not a subsidized monopoly, you still would have seen a large number of rural cooperatives, and probably a faster evolution of telephony. In the end, the massive AT&T monopoly was proved overall setback, not a great leap forward for communication technologies.
Regardless of our interpretation of history, I think the wide number of options for rural users makes subsidies even worse. Farms are better served by wireless. There is less maintenance, they have the open bandwidth in the country, and it is more useful.
Costs of routing have dropped so dramatically, that the current tax structure costs more than the service, yet the government is addicted to taxes and will regulate just to collect taxes. They will justify their actions with anti-market myths like the rural phone gap. Don't give in to the game.
PS: If living in the city is more efficient, shouldn't we be encouraging people to live in cities. taxing city folk to give money to country folk ends up creating a market inefficiency.
In my greedy ass state of Taxu$, they tax the living shit out of phone service.
There's taxes on the taxes on the taxes.
Pluss all that universal service tax that Klintoon slapped us up with.
Fuck em. Let the states choke to death on it. Greedy bastards ass rape you every time you turn around. I would be glad to see them getting less money from me for once. And I don't get anything back from the state.
I don't avail myself of any state provided services. At least any that are funded by telephone service taxes.
So, states, eat shit...
The old fashioned telephone companies are going the same way as the antiquated music industry. Technology progresses old monopolies die. If the government tries to control wired networks private wireless ones will pop up everywhere. If I have a VPN or SSL connection to some other computer what is contained in my packets is private, it doesn't matter if its porn, music, software or voice calls ....its my business!
That's the way it is!
I wonder though, how much of the cost of developing the internet was recouped when the government sold off the NSF backbone. Also, the internet was originally developed for the military and as such, development costs primarily came out of the DOD budget. Finally, the web was developed not in the U.S. but at CERN and as such very few U.S. taxpayer dollars went into web development, other than Federal web sites.
As I stated in another post, the taxes and fees on my POTS line run about 30%. While I don't mind contributing to the telecommunications commons, 30% seems usury, particularly when we are taxed every where we turn these days (Federal, state, local, school, sales, etc.). I would expect that for the 90% of the population who earn less than $100,000 per year, that at least 50% of their income goes to taxes and fees in one way or another.
OTOH, I think you're absolutely dead on that commercial interests rarely create anything really new and you're certainly correct that the invisible hand has not touched rural and impoverished areas. It just seems to me that we have a habit of imposing the taxes and fees in this country on the very people who can least afford to pay them when the large corporations should be paying for the privilege of doing business in this country. I fail to see how any of the five remaining kids of Sam Walton would have any less incentive to continue to do business if they each only made $19 billion instead of $20 billion.
users are always winners.
They say that state and federal governments will lose tax revenue on these phone calls... But they also won't need that tax money to maintain the system that governs the older phone systems. Of course, my arguments assumes that almost everyone will switch over to phone calls via the Internet, but their argument also admits that enough people to warrant a change are already doing it.
If it does go to regulation lets blur the line with different standards.
;)
Speakfreely anyone?
A blog I run for the wealth
I do not know how the government will tax this, but I am certain that it will not be well thought out or fair. It will be decided by who gets the most money and/or has the best lobby. In both cases, the average citizen will lose. This is how capitalism works: extract the most money you can from everyone. Kind of like a vacation at Disneyland without the fun.
Er, the government will apply an ill-thought-out and unfair tax, and you say that is how capitalism works? Don't you mean socialism?
Hmmmm, this sounds familiar. An old powerful entity sees a shift in the marketplace which could damage current revenue streams. The fear of the loss of billions of unearned dollars sparks new legislation to make sure the money keeps flowing into the established machine.
Is this the RIAA? Nope, its local and federal government realizing that there's more than one way to place a phone call now, and they don't have their hand in that pocket yet. They may even run afoul of the "no internet tax" laws they just passed (I have no I idea, I haven't read the legislation- I just assumed it was proposed so that unpopular amendments about 's could be added)
The difference is that this time the injured party has the ability to actually write and pass laws (oh...right). Okay, so at least this time the money comes back to the populations, either as jobs, or pork, or both.
Ahhhh, I love Mondays... a whole weekend of cynicism saved up and ready to pour forth.
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
"The stakes in the debate are huge. Federal and state governments could lose billions of dollars in revenue from regulatory fees if calls moved onto the Internet are no longer subject to the charges."
:) ), no one is guaranteed a sale. Nobody(EN), nessuno(IT), personne(FR). So please talking about losing something you don't have, Mr. AT&T, RIAA, MPAA, and the rest of the businesses that think the public owes them a living.
To lose a sale, revenue, etc., you have to have it first. As has been said on Slashdot a million times before ( after this post, a million and one
Thank You.
I can't afford a sig!
Hmmm, what's that F in FCC stand for again? Ummmm, Fscked? No. Fancy? No. Futile? Nooo.... Ah! FEDERAL. As in non-global, non-international, and thus no power or influence outside the boundries of the United States.
Now, the internet thingy.... that seems to be a global network that reaches places outside of the US.
Now then, what was this about a US-Centric FCC attempt to regulate the content of my packet stream (which is just plain-old encrypted packets)?
I thought so... go away and take your ball with you.
It is very obvious you live in a very sheltered world. When they say rural, they don't mean suburb rural. Out on the great plains there are farms that are 10 miles from even their closest neighbor and probably 25 to 50 miles from the closest town. (Ever drive through Nebraska or the Dakotas?).
...especially if there was an emergency and you needed help?
Getting phone service to these people is no small task and the costs can far exceed what the phone companies can recoup even in 30 years of billing these customers. Wireless isn't even an option. Sure, driving down I-80 you can probably get a signal on your Cel phone, but that is only because the wireless carriers have the corridor covered. Get more than 10 miles from the interstate and the signal quickly disappears. Sure, there is sattlelite, but given it's particular set of problems would you really want to depend on it if it was the only thing standing between you and utter isolation?
The only reason that there are wired phones there at all is because the government reached an agreement with AT&T for universal access.
When wireless companies can offer reliable coverage over every square foot of the continental US, then you MIGHT have a point.
For me personally, Cell phones are crap. I live within sight of an antenna, but yet have to go out on the front porch of my home to get enough signal to use my cell phone. Would you want to bet your life on that technology?
All roads are Toll roads, just some are paid for via taxes, others are by direct payments at the 'booth'..
But you still pay either way..
And the few ( what is it, 9? ) states that dont have sales tax, make up for the revenue stream in a different manner. Its all just shuffled around to make people feel like they got a break..
---- Booth was a patriot ----
Seems you have missed making the same sort of useless comments on several other posts I've made lately..
Are you slowing down ? I so much appreciate the help in catching my typos.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
Modded into the ground for speaking the truth.
I'll repeat my devastated post for those who would like to see it. .
Now. . . Please, if somebody would like to actually disagree with this. . . I would love to hear their 'logic'. As I see it, there is no rational defense of the corporate/government desire to tax and bill the bejeezus out of people through needless charges and needless regulation. And anybody who believes that the 'terrorist' nonsense is actually what it is being sold as, is a damned, damned fool.
But then I don't expect a whole lot of rational thought around here. Fear and Ignorance? Sure, but Rational Thought is a rare bird in these parts.
Self-deluding Cowards afraid to look at the world objectively disgust me.
-FL
I think folks are getting confused about the difference between sending calls over some IP network vs. sending calls over the public Internet. In the US, the FCC has a bunch of regulations for a vertical-integrated service called "telephone service". The behavior, roles, requirements, taxation, etc. are described in great detail. Today, local and/or long-distance companies can and do carry phone calls over private IP networks, some of which are also used for Internet traffic as well. This is perfectly legal and does not change existing taxation rules in any way. In addition, PacketCable and others have extensive architectures which describe how to build a managed telephone service that runs natively on an IP network. In both cases, the whole network is managed in a manner consistent with the FCC definitions of a telephone service and taxed equivalently. Contrast this with a program on a PC that allows me to rendezvous with and send arbitrary data (which could be packetized audio) between users on the public Internet (like Skype). The FCC also has a tax on broadband access, but does not treat Skype as a telephony service. As folks have pointed out, it would be almost impossible to detect the difference between one such use of the Internet and any other. Finally there are services like Vonage which offer a rendezvous and telephone-network-gateway service on the public Internet. These services use a broadband Internet connection paid for separately by their users and not managed by the gateway provider, but they provide a dedicated PSTN telephone number and usually use small home gateways you can plug a telephone into. These are harder to classify since they can be configured to look/sound like a traditional telephone service to unsuspecting users. Here is where the regulatory battle is being fought. In addition to the taxation issue, there are public safety agencies who still want emergency services to work well in this environment, after the fiasco of cellular 911. (One proposal to satisfy these folks is to add an additional tax to broadband services to fund "Internet emergency services". Imagine paging 911 from your Blackberry) Hopefully this will provide some interesting grist for the mill... One last thing. I bristle a bit when folks talk about US telecom "deregulation". In the US, we went from having a two Incumbent Local Exchange Providers of any relevance (AT&T and GTE) to 8 (US West, Ameritech, SBC, PacBell, Bell South, Bell Atlantic, NYNEX, GTE) in 1986, to now 4 (Qwest, SBC, Bell South, and Verizon). AFAIK, telecom "deregulation" is really just "reregulation". Competition for traditional phone service is still effectively limited to very large companies. Real deregulation would allow for a proliferation of small companies and cooperatives to participate, and we are not there yet.
(reposted as "plain text". apologies...)
I think folks are getting confused about the difference between sending calls over some IP network vs. sending calls over the public Internet.
In the US, the FCC has a bunch of regulations for a vertical-integrated service called "telephone service". The behavior, roles, requirements, taxation, etc. are described in great detail. Today, local and/or long-distance companies can and do carry phone calls over private IP networks, some of which are also used for Internet traffic as well. This is perfectly legal and does not change existing taxation rules in any way. In addition, PacketCable and others have extensive architectures which describe how to build a managed telephone service that runs natively on an IP network. In both cases, the whole network is managed in a manner consistent with the FCC definitions of a telephone service and taxed equivalently.
Contrast this with a program on a PC that allows me to rendezvous with and send arbitrary data (which could be packetized audio) between users on the public Internet (like Skype). The FCC also has a tax on broadband access, but does not treat Skype as a telephony service. As folks have pointed out, it would be almost impossible to detect the difference between one such use of the Internet and any other.
Finally there are services like Vonage which offer a rendezvous and telephone-network-gateway service on the public Internet. These services use a broadband Internet connection paid for separately by their users and not managed by the gateway provider, but they provide a dedicated PSTN telephone number and usually use small home gateways you can plug a telephone into. These are harder to classify since they can be configured to look/sound like a traditional telephone service to unsuspecting users. Here is where the regulatory battle is being fought.
In addition to the taxation issue, there are public safety agencies who still want emergency services to work well in this environment, after the fiasco of cellular 911. (One proposal to satisfy these folks is to add an additional tax to broadband services to fund "Internet emergency services". Imagine paging 911 from your Blackberry)
Hopefully this will provide some interesting grist for the mill...
One last thing. I bristle a bit when folks talk about US telecom "deregulation". In the US, we went from having a two Incumbent Local Exchange Providers of any relevance (AT&T and GTE) to 8 (US West, Ameritech, SBC, PacBell, Bell South, Bell Atlantic, NYNEX, GTE) in 1986, to now 4 (Qwest, SBC, Bell South, and Verizon). AFAIK, telecom "deregulation" is really just "reregulation". Competition for traditional phone service is still effectively limited to very large companies. Real deregulation would allow for a proliferation of small companies and cooperatives to participate, and we are not there yet.
With inner-city phone customers paying up to three times as much for basic service as their suburban neighbors, there is no sane argument remaining for the universal service fee structure.
When some ISPs took advantage of the access-fee legislation to put up modem banks and realized ROIs in the 400-500% range, it became painfully obvious that regulating the industry was bound to continue to fail in its objectives due to ever-present unintended consequences.
The most dramatic effect I can see coming out of regulating VoIP is hastening the demise of the public switched telephone network. Since the only value proposition offered by VoIP-as-service is quality guarantees and PSTN access, it will not be competitive with regular phone service any more, and bypassing the LD providers will continue to be possible by using direct IP-phone to IP-phone, which can't be regulated, carries no incremental cost to those already equipped with broadband access, and will continue to push PSTN rates up due to the loss of LD subsidies. The positive-feedback loop involved means that it is inevitable; we will see the trend accelerate as more standardization of protocols results in more network-effect value, more cheap phone devices equipped for direct Internet connection, and local phone service rates going up. Every one of these trends is already in progress and irreversible, and they all build on one another.
I know by painful experience not to try to predict when these things will happen, but they will happen, and soon. If my predictions were accurate, it would already have happened five years ago. But the basic economic fact is that it costs orders-of-magnitude less to provide communications using a ubiquitous packet-switched network, and only government regulation can slow it significantly, and in the current case may actually accelerate it dramatically.
OK,
.43 .56 .56 .75 .20 .50 .14 .13 per access line .13
.43 + 5.00 + .56 + .58 + .75 + .20 + .50 + .14 + .13 or a total of $8.29 per month added to a $12.50 bill. This is my direct taxes for the line.
A recent landline bill includes $12.50 for basic service. That's simple enough. Basic service.
Now add on;
Federal Charge Service Provider Number
Federal Access Charge $5.00
Fedral Universal Serv Fund
Federal Excise at 3%
City Occupation at %6
State 911 at $.20 per line
Local 911 at $.50 per line
TRS Excise Funds Federal ADA Requirement at $.14 per access line
Telephone Assistance Program at
That's
These are the directly billable to the consumer. These are easly shown. Not easy to see or show is how much QWest has to fork over that's rolled over into my $12.50 for the line. I assume they hit QWest with their share of taxes also.
Later when I get more time, I may have to get into the investor relations website and see if I can find any of that other taxes QWest pays in the fincial statements.
The truth shall set you free!
"...and the Federal Government stands to lose billions in revenue if they don't regulate it..." Not true. Rather, they could choose to not tax it and allow everyone to telecommunicate more efficiently resulting in monetary savings to each individual, business and the country as a whole. These untaxed savings will be used to expand businesses, invest, or buy Porches, all of which create jobs, grow the economy, increase the national and world GDP and make everyone richer. THEN they can grab a bigger chunk of everyone's income.
I'm from Minnesota and the b1tches love me and Minnesota for this.
"Ubuntu" - an African word meaning "Slackware is too hard for me."
Thanks! That was actually quite interesting... However, do note that that $5.00 Federal Access Charge is *not* federal tax, and does not end up in the government coffers. See here. So, the direct tax is actually $3.29 per month which, while still a lot, is nowhere near 2/3rds of the bill. Although, as you say, there may be hidden taxes in there.
Federal and State governments need to learn that 'revenue' is not theirs to lose, it's ours. I don't want to take anything away from government; I just don't want us all to have to pay for an outdated system.