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FCC Rules States Can't Regulate VoIP
NardofDoom writes "Ars Technica is reporting that the FCC has 'placed a regulatory shield around VoIP,' declaring it immune to state regulation, even if calls terminate on publicly switched networks (POTS). A previous ruling declared that Internet-Internet calls (i.e. Skype) can't be regulated, but the ruling opens the door for Verizon, AT&T and other local carriers to offer VoIP to customers without paying state taxes. One step closer to free phone calls, or one step closer to state regulation or taxation of IP networks?"
Whilst this will allow VoIP to continue its growth, etc., it also establishes precedent for federal control of the networks. Although it is true that some industries that are now relatively free began as heavily regulated monopolies, this strikes me as a step in the wrong direction.
I'm all for this. It'll be meaningful competition finally. Though regulations exist for the leasing of infrastructure to smaller companies at reasonable rates, those are still abused. Once voice is just packets, it's a totally level playing field.
My blog. Good stuff (when I remember to update it). Read it.
i think this is wonderful news. it looks to me like uncle sam finally sees that VOIP needs to be left alone in order for it to prospoer. look at how POTS was regulated to death and you see how important it is to keep VOIP free and clear.
Keep the faith, share the code
I'd rather have state regulation than fed.
If you disagree with a state's law(s) you can always move to another;
with fed's your just fucked.
So... IMO this is bad.
The FCC using its powers for good?
How on earth could this happen?
There's no regulation/taxation on moving data packets over the internet so why should they unfairly penalize people who wish to send voice traffic? Is the government going to sniff all packets and tax you on the ones that contain VOIP bits?
If companies and individuals can lower costs by moving voice bits to IP networks, then more power to them. The companies with huge inefficient networks of POTS lines can either morph with the market or go out of business. Why should VOIP customers subsidize inefficient players in the telecom industry and or the government's slush fund?
Which you probably already pay taxes on anyway.
And you think the lowest levels are better? I have news for you buddy- the corruption on my local city council rivals that of large cities. And I've never seen more useless beauracracy and petty bickering than in school council meetings.
I still have more fans than freaks. WTF is wrong with you people?
Voip calls aren't free, someone has to pay for the networks thats running the IP traffic. Then there's a cost for your internet connection.
Have you ever been to a turkish prison?
Not that I would buy into that, but I don't think people as a whole are bright enough to not blame VoIP in such a situation.
I predict the legislation will be called the "Let's keep our kids alive" law...
So, rather than do Internet over the telephone for $27/line plus $20/mo, you can do telephone over the Internet for a grand total of $50/mo. Not to mention that this will increase broadband adoption, hopefully lowering prices. So this is perfectly reasonable for the less well-off, and better for everyone as a whole. The local POTS is a hegemony system anyway. It's called 'choice', and we now have it, where before you had the illusion of it.
My blog. Good stuff (when I remember to update it). Read it.
Seems like the sensible thing to do would be to tax DSL and Cable in roughly the same way that telephone lines are taxed (is that feasible?), instead of regulating VOIP over DSL and Cable like telephone lines.
The current situation does seem a bit bizarre, though. Does this mean that all the phone company needs to do is send me a new phone and insure that, somehow or another, the phone uses IP to talk to the local station, and then suddenly a service that is (from my point of view) functionally identical is suddenly not regulated as phone service?
--Bruce Fields
It unfairly taxes a specific kind of internet traffic. It is just data flowing over lines no differently than webbrowsing. Allowing states to set a precidence where they are allowed to tax a specific kind of internet traffic is not good for anyone. Also imagine being a VoIP company where you have to process all the rules for VoIP for cities/counties/states. It would be a logistical nightmare.
This is very good for VoIP and the internet in general imo.
Well as much as we all would love this, I think from a financial stand point businesses will fair better. If you've ever compared the cost of a POTS line for a business as opposed to a home user you will notice the large price difference. At my company we pay for a T-1 which is split between voice and data, with VOIP we can pay only for the data (cheaper) then go with a VOIP career and save houndreds in LD charges a month. To be honest on the home realm I see Cell phones driving down the cost of POTS lines to where theywill be much less regulated (hopefully).
Your post seems to assume that regulation or taxation of telephony is needed. Are monopolies forming in telephony? No! The barriers to entry to forming your own telco are practically nil.
The same IS NOT true of Internet service providers, and that seems to speak more toward your point (that some people can't afford it). But let's not use an outdated methodology like telephony taxes to fund ISP regulation.
That's like taxing the bejesus out of electric pencil sharpeners in order to avoid a monopoly in writing paper. It's a great way to decimate the electric pencil sharpener business, but doesn't accomplish the goal of regulating writing paper makers.
Let's abolish these stupid, outdated, state feeding troughs and (if we need to) put new troughs where they can do some good.
The states give the excuse that the tax is needed to pay for emergency services. The fact is that those emergency services would still be necessary even if no one had a telephone and all we had were a bunch of pay phones, and moreover, can be used completely gratis by people who have no phone service and only use pay phones. Thus, allowing the states and communities to tax even POTS was creating a tax on the technologically savvy to pay for service that was used by the less technologically competent. Preventing taxes on VoIP just means that the folks in the middle get screwed (which is pretty much the norm, sadly). It's not right, but it's a step in the right direction.
As far as I'm concerned, if I as a phone customer have to pay an E911 tax on my phone bill, then E911 service should only be available to people who pay that tax. Pay phones should not have E911 service, nor should any cell phones outside their home city. And no, I don't think that's a good idea. I think the current system is broken and needs to be rethought.
The -right- fix for the problem is to pay for this out of property tax and hotel tax revenues. This is a much more fair means of covering the costs of those services, as it applies regardless of whether someone has an out-of-state cell phone as his/her primary line, an in-state cell phone, a wired phone, a VoIP line, or no telephone at all. Those who own rental property pass the cost on to renters, and now everyone is roughly burdened equally, which makes sense, since everyone has about the same chances of needing the service (age and health issues notwithstanding).
Bottom line: if everyone needs the service, -everyone- should pay for it, not just those with a phone line, thus taxation for any reason other than upkeep of the telephone poles (and wires/switching if the community owns the hardware) is wrong.
Check out my sci-fi/humor trilogy at PatriotsBooks.
Because they CAN be.
Maybe I'm subconsiously a commie, but shouldn't everything that CAN be free, be free?
Knoledge, parking, beer, and communication are all things that should be free.
--Forest C. Adcock--
I think there's a difference between transactional taxes on things like phone service, gas tax, sales tax, etc. and the items you list. For transactional taxes, I agree that the tax should apply to the arena of the transaction taxed. For the others you mention, don't we already have an income tax? I don't recall the grandparent post saying to abolish that.... Such things are also municipally funded by property taxes....
7 November 2006: The day Americans realized corruption and incompetence weren't addressing 11 September 2001
The military has been used to secure foreign resources. This benefits the wealthy the most, as the resources they secure belong to companies owned by or invested in by the wealthy.
So, until the American military is used *only* to defend the United States against aggressors, the rich should pay more than the poor for defense.
You have two hands and one brain, so always code twice as much as you think!
actually, even *that* wouldn't work.
You have two hands and one brain, so always code twice as much as you think!
(Let's not even call it the "internet" anymore, please. It's just a network for sending and receiving IP packets)
That's fine and dandy but do you know what IP stands for? It's Internet Protocol...
Yuck, before advocating more sales tax please realize it is one of the most regressive types of taxes possible.
Advocate for luxury taxes instead.
"Who is the Journal of Quantum Physics going to believe?" --Stephen Hawking
Knoledge, parking, beer, and communication are all things that should be free.
So who is going to pay the property tax where you park? Who pays for the asphalt and the yearly resurfacing? Who pays for the barley, rice and corn that goes into the beer? Who pays the salaries of those working the stills?
How CAN those things be free when they require resources and manpower to create?
The problem today is many things have become so easy to reproduce or to provide that they are essentially free, of course the companies involved don't like that and try to create artificial scarceness of resources in order to preserve old business models. Most electronic communications and digital media are perfect examples.
I find this to be funny since it is exactly this intentional lack of innovation that has landed every communist nation in the economic toilet.
Companies and individuals can still easily make money with commodities that are free or nearly so, it's all a question of coming up with a different business model to repackage it in a new way or to simply include it within another product and no longer use it as a primary product.
Of course we are talking about people here and true Capitalism is just as harsh as Natural Selection so you are going to see many in government and industry resist technological change for the disruption of lives, jobs, and income that it inevitably causes. They forget though it's not a zero sum game and in the end there will be more to go around for everyone.
Free is the ultimate expression of innovation and innovation in turn is central to what makes Capitalism so effective.