Will FCC Regulate Internet Phone Calls?

Posted by timothy on Sunday November 30, 2003 @12:48PM from the unctuous-rulemakers dept.

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.""

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How? by pdaoust007 · 2003-11-30 12:58 · Score: 5, Informative

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?
Re:Sadly, by orthancstone · 2003-11-30 13:43 · Score: 5, Informative

Only 5 states are without a sales tax rate. Yeah, that may be 10 percent but that still isn't many.