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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.
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?
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.
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.
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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--
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.