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FCC Rules States Can't Regulate VoIP

Posted by michael on from the can-you-hear-me-now? dept.

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?"

48 of 243 comments (clear)

  1. Only TERRORISTS would make free phone calls! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    If you don't pay for your phone call then you _MUST_ be an anti-capitalist American-hating commie terrorist!

  2. Direct From The Source! by 1_interest_1 · · Score: 5, Informative

    FCC News Release (PDF, 110K)

    Michael Powell's Statements (PDF, 75.6K)

  3. ET? by bluewee · · Score: 5, Funny

    ET Phone Home: 127.0.0.1 (just in case you forgot the number) and if you prefer :::1 if you are on IP6 there et buddy...

    --
    [blue] - The Ministry of Information approved this message...
  4. A double-edged sword by CMcQueeny · · Score: 4, Insightful

    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.

    1. Re:A double-edged sword by CMcQueeny · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Whether or not it is possible to circumvent is irrelevant... one should not be forced to break the law in order to exercise liberties.

    2. Re:A double-edged sword by CMcQueeny · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Simple: from whence does the FCC derive this authority to decide what states can and cannot to to VoIP? Obviously to regulate something at all, one must have some degree of authority over it.

  5. What I hate by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I hate it that government departments like the FCC can decide whether or not to raise my taxes simply by fiat rather than having the tax go to a vote either in Congress or in a referendum. They are answerable to no one (save their big media financiers), and do not represent us, the drooling public.

    Frankly, the FCC should have no say one way or the other whether the states can tax anything. It is none of their business. Their mandate is far too wide in the first place and it should be pared back, in my opinion.

    In this situation they seem to have ruled in our favor, but so too did Mussolini get the trains to run on time. Assad was able to build up Lebanon. Even the despised Hitler was able to bring Germany out of the dust of WWI and build it into a strong industrial machine. Just because your government sometimes does the right thing does not mean that it needs to have as much power as we give it. The power of government should reside at the lowest levels, i.e. the community and city levels. It should be taken away from the highest levels lest they decide to misuse it, e.g. DMCA, Patriot Act.

    1. Re:What I hate by AuMatar · · Score: 5, Insightful

      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?
    2. Re:What I hate by Twanfox · · Score: 5, Interesting

      Here is an excellent question, and a notion of my own taxation philosophy.

      Taxation should be necessary, relevent, and funds garnered from it reused in related affairs. Take, for instance, gasoline tax. This is (should) used to build and maintain roads, an act directly related to the consumption of gasoline. It even makes sense. The more gasoline you buy, the more you are driving, and the more wear you put on the road. Similarly, the more you wear the road down, so too should you aid more in repairing same.

      Now, the question about taxing phone service and VoIP. Is this a necessary taxation? Is there some reason why it may be necessary for the government to seek money out of this business? Under what general principle is this money to be used? Are they attempting to compare sales tax (property acquisition) to service sales, something that does not seem to be taxed? (ie: IIRC, my cable internet bill is not taxed, and I don't recall any other cases where 'service' with no product is taxed) Seems to be to be a rather vague and specious reason to tax VoIP "just because" phone service was taxed. VoIP is a completely different breed of service, and by itself does not even require a service provider to function (direct IP to IP calls).

      Screw the government if it thinks it needs to tax things just out of principle. This is how taxes should be driven, out of a need by the government to fund a related community-at-large project. I honestly don't see phone taxes as doing anything of the sort. If they can't come up with a good reason why VoIP needs to be taxed, and what that money is going to be used for, then they do not need to tax it.

    3. Re:What I hate by CMcQueeny · · Score: 2, Informative

      Corruption may be present in all levels of government, but it is much easier to influence the lower levels. Just try writing your Senator and some local official like a city counsellor: I'll bet that you'll get a template letter or no letter at all from the former, while you're likely to get an actual response from the latter.

    4. Re:What I hate by whoever57 · · Score: 2, Interesting
      Taxation should be necessary, relevent, and funds garnered from it reused in related affairs. Take, for instance, gasoline tax. This is (should) used to build and maintain roads, an act directly related to the consumption of gasoline. It even makes sense. The more gasoline you buy, the more you are driving, and the more wear you put on the road. Similarly, the more you wear the road down, so too should you aid more in repairing same.
      You are ignoring the other purpose of taxation: to discourage behaviours that society feels are harmful or should be limited. For example, many countries have vastly higher gasolene taxes, to discourage the use of private motor vehicles (and indirectly encourage the use of mass transportation).

      In this case, however, it is very hard to see how a tax on VoIP would accomplish either goal. It's hard to see why VoIP should be discouraged and it is hard to see why VoIP is related to any local services - after all, I can take my VoIP phone to another country and keep the same number -- am I using local services if I am abroad (and my billing address is a PO box)?

      In my view, one should be taxed (if at all) on the local connection: be that fiber, copper, coax, wireless or whatever. The taxes on that local connection should be put towards the local services. One should then be free to put whatever type of protocol one wants onto that local connection without different taxation for different protocols.

      --
      The real "Libtards" are the Libertarians!
    5. Re:What I hate by ratamacue · · Score: 3, Interesting
      The rationale for decentralized government is simple. The more power government has at its disposal, the higher the level of abuse, and the bigger the problems government will cause. Government can only cause so much trouble with limited power and revenue. For example, the US federal government caused relatively few problems around the world before the federal income tax (which, incidentally, was supposed to be temporary). Today, the US federal government has troops stationed in over 150 countries around the world, and has been at war with some country, somewhere in the world, for every single year over the past century. Why? Because they can. Power will be abused, and absolute power will be abused absolutely.

      Naturally, a centralized government has many times more potential for abuse than decentralized government. That's not to say that local and state governments can't be abused, just that there is an upper limit on abuse.

  6. 3 cheers for sanity by PitaBred · · Score: 4, Insightful

    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.
  7. Federal taxes instead of state taxes? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Will federal taxes be levied instead of state taxes?

  8. Fair taxation? by bstarrfield · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I know that this will be unpopular with the ./ crowd, but this strikes me as a pretty unfair subsidy of the technologically savvy at the expense of the less technologically competent.

    VOIP requires that you have a high speed line - either DSL or cable - an expense that many people can't afford. Additionally, many people live in locations that do not have access to high speed internet. If you can't afford, or can't receive high speed access, you're left with conventional phone or cellular phones - both of which can be regulated and taxed by the states.

    Though I understand the FCC's motivation to promote development of the VOIP industry, why should those with high speed access find a loophole out of local telephony costs? The administration is all in favor of reduced taxation, but this ruling actually works out be a non-legislative regressive tax.

    IMO, We need to try to equalize the costs and benefits of new technologies, and not allow technologies to be used to escape financial responsibilities.

    --
    /* Dang, I can't type that well. */
    1. Re:Fair taxation? by rcw-work · · Score: 3, Insightful
      VOIP requires that you have a high speed line - either DSL or cable

      Which you probably already pay taxes on anyway.

    2. Re:Fair taxation? by PitaBred · · Score: 3, Insightful

      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.
    3. Re:Fair taxation? by bfields · · Score: 3, Insightful
      this strikes me as a pretty unfair subsidy of the technologically savvy at the expense of the less technologically competent.

      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

    4. Re:Fair taxation? by ValuJet · · Score: 5, Insightful
      Here is why.

      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.

    5. Re:Fair taxation? by jmulvey · · Score: 2, Insightful

      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.

    6. Re:Fair taxation? by dgatwood · · Score: 5, Insightful
      You have this upside down. This is one step towards removing states' ability to tax things that they never should have had the authority to tax to begin with.

      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.

    7. Re:Fair taxation? by JoeStreet · · Score: 2, Informative

      this strikes me as a pretty unfair subsidy of the technologically savvy at the expense of the less technologically competent.

      You don't have to be technologically savy to use VOIP. I have Vonage and the installation, if you can call it that, was a no-brainer. Truly plug-and-play. I don't see this as unfair at all.

      VOIP requires that you have a high speed line - either DSL or cable - an expense that many people can't afford.

      Do the math. VOIP is sooo cheap compared to standard phone service it pays for your broadband. I went from a $100/mo phone bill to a $25/mo VOIP bill. I'm laughing all the way to the bank.

      Additionally, many people live in locations that do not have access to high speed internet.

      I don't see why I should subsidize service for these people. If you live in a remote location you should be prepared to pay the price. Ever seen the cost of living indexes for Alaska and Hawaii?

    8. Re:Fair taxation? by NardofDoom · · Score: 2, Insightful
      Additionally, how would anyone know what packets are what? By port? What stops someone from port mapping their VoIP box to port 80? Will the states or feds put boxes *inside* your firewall to determine what data you're sending?

      actually, even *that* wouldn't work.

      --
      You have two hands and one brain, so always code twice as much as you think!
    9. Re:Fair taxation? by Wesley+Felter · · Score: 2, Informative

      If you apply the tax at the VoIP/PSTN gateway, there's much less of a problem. VoIP taxes are not taxes on packets; they're taxes on the service of gatewaying those packets onto the PSTN.

  9. what a positive by Yonkeltron · · Score: 3, Insightful

    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
  10. hmm... by bretharder · · Score: 2, Insightful

    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.

  11. Bad wording by ad0gg · · Score: 4, Insightful
    "One step closer to free phone calls, or one step closer to state regulation or taxation of IP networks?" "

    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?

  12. We'll see by PincheGab · · Score: 2, Insightful
    I want to wait for the first instance of a VoIP call failure eventually leading to someone's death (ie, a 911 call did not go through because a router was down/etc...).

    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...

  13. IP networks SHOULD be taxed - JUST ONCE by stagmeister · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Ideally, we shouldn't be paying per-month fees for our access to IP networks. (Let's not even call it the "internet" anymore, please. It's just a network for sending and receiving IP packets) We should be paying for bandwith. Just like we have an electric bill where we pay per kilowatt, and a water bill where we pay per gallon, we should pay per megabit sent and received over the IP networks. That way all this traffic - is already taxed. We could have one tax on IP traffic fees, and after that it's fair game to do whatever you want with that IP traffic. So VOIP calls wouldn't be "free", they would cost a certain amount depending on the bitrate you send and receive at. And they would be taxed based on how much bandwith you use for it.
    Jason

    --
    http://www.virtualvillagesquare.com/ Online Communities: The Next Generation
    1. Re:IP networks SHOULD be taxed - JUST ONCE by xlv · · Score: 3, Insightful

      (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...

  14. my experience by theMerovingian · · Score: 4, Informative

    One step closer to free phone calls, or one step closer to state regulation or taxation of IP networks?

    All I know is that I used to pay $65 a month for SBC service with unlimited long distance, caller ID, and voicemail. After I switched to Vonage (same deal for $24.99/mo), SBC started calling me three times a day to get me to switch back for $24.99.

    I won't switch back, even though VoIP is a little annoying (doesn't work when the power is out, have to occasionally restart the cable modem, etc). Thank goodness that a cheaper alternative came along to break the back of the local phone monopoly.

    --
    "If you think you have things under control, you're not going fast enough." --Mario Andretti
    1. Re:my experience by calibanDNS · · Score: 2, Informative

      You can get cable/VoIP modems with a battery backup. The modem I got from Time Warner cable (in central NC) came with a backup that is reported to last close to 8 hours in the event of a power outage. Now, not only do I not have to worry about not being able to call 911 in a power outage (and I have a cell phone anyway), but I can pass the time during an outage by browsing the web.

  15. Re:Any such taxes in Europe or Canada? by Misao-Chan · · Score: 2, Informative

    The CRTC (Canadian equiv. of the FCC) recently held public submissions on the topic of VoIP Regulation. They will release a decision in the next few months if they will regulate it or not.

    During the submissions, there were a lot of petitions stating that VoIP should not be regulated. Most of the phone companies including Bell and TELUS (who I happen to work for), as well as the smaller VoIP providers, were against regulation.

    Hopefully they will choose the non-regulated path...

    --
    -Misao Little Weasel Girl
  16. Business will benifit. by Brigadier · · Score: 3, Insightful


    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).

  17. Question by forand · · Score: 2, Interesting

    And in your system how do we pay for things like law enforcement, military, science, etc. i.e. things that we don't directly use but expect our government to provide?

    1. Re:Question by elmegil · · Score: 2, Insightful

      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
    2. Re:Question by NardofDoom · · Score: 2, Insightful
      If you want the tax to be relevant, let's look at it another way.

      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!
    3. Re:Question by damiangerous · · Score: 3, Informative
      At an annual income of $170k, the federal tax burden is about 18%.

      At an annual income of $170k the federal income tax rate is 33% (married filing jointly is 28%):
      http://taxes.yahoo.com/rates.html

      Also keep in mind that they do benefit more - they're rich.

      Sure, if they're spending more they're benfiting more. If they're just socking money away for retirement or for their kids they're not benefiting yet. Once they spend the money they (or their kids) benefit from it, and at that point it's taxed.

      Who protectes them while they sleep?

      Do rich people cost more to protect? Only if they have larger and more valuable properties and homes...which they're being taxed for.

      Who provides the society that supported them getting rich in the first place? Nobody gets rich alone.

      I fail to see how that is relevant or what your point actually is.

    4. Re:Question by damiangerous · · Score: 2, Interesting
      You obviously haven't spent much of your life where food, shelter, and clothing represented a significant fraction of your expenditures.

      Let's see. I was laid off at the end of 2003 (from a 30k/yr job). My wife left her job (also about 30k) on disability in Jan 2004. My unemployment ran out in August. Our current household income is solely her disability (and what I can sell of my stuff on eBay), which is about what a high school kid could make at Wal-Mart. I've defaulted on every payment I had save for rent, car payment/insurance and broadband (though the latter two are behind and threatening). The broadband connection is our single "luxury" item and it's not really a luxury considering a phone line plus ISP (necessary for job searching and eBay) would cost about the same as broadband plus Lingo VoIP.

      Once my car is repaired ($1200) I'll be able to take the first shitty retail job I can find simply to have money coming in.

      You were saying?

    5. Re:Question by mrchaotica · · Score: 2, Interesting

      So what's so bad about a regressive sales tax? The key difference is that it is a tax on consumption. If somebody feels like their taxes are too high, there's an easy solution: BUY LESS STUFF!

      Have you noticed how Americans have been getting farther and farther into debt in the last few decades? How more and more people are planning to rely on Social Security, when it'll probably be bankrupt by the time they retire? If so, then you should agree with me that our own spending habits are the worst problem we have.

      Imagine the usual situation when you're trying to get a new car (or some other large purchase): Since the Man is taking a quarter of your paycheck, you feel like it will take forever to save up the money to get it. On the other hand, this shiny plastic card right here can get you the thing Right Now, and you can pay it off little by little with the pittance the Government allows you to keep.

      With a sales tax instead, the alternative becomes this: You suddenly have a bunch more money since none of it is being taken any more, so now you can afford to put enough of it away to save enough for the car quickly. Besides, the more you save the more you keep and the less the Government gets. So why give it to them now? Why not let it work for you, and only give it up when you have to?

      Sure, this is entirely a psychological effect, but I think it would be a useful one -- a National Placebo, if you will.

      Then we start getting into the more standard regressive tax arguments: With the Income Tax, if you get a raise, not only does the amount you're taxed increase, the proportion of it increases too. In the past I have decided to work less specifically to keep myself out of the next higher tax bracket. I imagine that's a big consideration for others too: imagine the proverbial single parent, struglling to make ends meet. How much would it suck to realize "Oh, crap! My raise was just enough to raise my taxes, but not enough to compensate for it! Now I can't afford to pay the bills -- I'm worse off than before!"

      I would much rather people be rewarded for seeking higher pay, instead of punished. I want people to think "yay, I got a raise -- now I can afford to save more money for my retirement|a house|college for my kids!" I want poor people to be offered a carrot on a stick, instead of just being thrown table scraps.

      But I guess that just makes me a heartless bastard since it's not "Progressive," huh?

      --

      "[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz

  18. Re:Wrong Moderation by FCAdcock · · Score: 4, Insightful

    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--
  19. Re:Wrong Moderation by rjelks · · Score: 2, Funny

    Why do you hate freedom?

    --


    Tech News, Reviews and Tutorials
  20. This isn't all good by CallMeNipple · · Score: 2, Interesting
    I work for a small independant telephone company. Although I'm glad that VoIP isn't regulated, it puts my company in a very awkward position. Namely an inability to compete. If we have to charge our customers for 911, USF, federal and state taxes so should a VoIP provider if any their calls terminate on the POTS network. I would be equally okay with the deregulation of the POTS network instead.

    People sometimes suggest we start providing VoIP service (and we are), but this is also a problem in certain areas. ILEC's can't really put this service in and charge less for it unless every customer can get it and the state PSC doesn't think its a waste of money (this is somewhat untrue, but the regulatory environment imposed on an ILEC is freakishly complicated). In our CLEC territory we are going to roll this out but can't offer it in our ILEC because we can't legally compete with ourselves. At this point we will have two different systems providing the same service. Not a problem until Farmer Joe calls the ILEC and demands to know why his friend 10 miles away gets his phone for 15 bucks less a month from (what appears to him) to be the same company. Suggesting he send his comments to the PSC to try and help change the situation just makes him more mad. People don't want to hear laywerish sounding crap about regulation. It really isn't our fault but thats why people hate the telephone company. I think 85% of the time there's some legal mumbo jumbo telling us we can't do something or making it prohibitivly expensive(I'll attribute the rest to human error and actual screw ups).

    We like competition, it helps us serve our customers better and lets us know where we're messing up but only if everyone is on the same playing field. We like VoIP its going to save us quite a bit of money in the long haul. We don't like screwing half our customers because we legally can't implement VoIP for them.

    In summery: Regulate VoIP for deregulat POTS.

  21. FCC: evil or not? by N8F8 · · Score: 2, Funny

    So , is the FCC the evil pawn of the Republican party today or not?

    --
    "God fights on the side with the best artillery." - Napoleon, Marshal of France - speaking truth to power
  22. How long... by ebob9 · · Score: 2, Interesting

    How long until this is reversed?

    If this ruling applies to the large Telcos as well, You can bet this will not stay long.

    If I was an AT&T, or a Verizon, I'd begin immediate plans to migrate my telephone network from Circuit switched/Frame Relay/ATM to IP. Whats to stop them from running a private IP network, and saving regulatory fees?

    (I'm currently RTFA, but I'm slow and impatient)

  23. How big must the network be? by bill_mcgonigle · · Score: 2, Interesting

    The FCC had ruled previously that "pure VoIP" was free from regulation because calls originated and terminated over the Internet, but regulation of VoIP calls that terminate on publicly switched networks had yet to be addressed. These calls and services will now be treated in the same way.

    So does this just apply to the big corps or to everybody?

    If I hook up my old-school phones in the house with VOIP TA's and terminate them at an Asterisk PBX, onto my POTS line (which I'm about to do anyway), do I get to forgo the state taxes on those lines?

    --
    My God, it's Full of Source!
    OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
  24. Actually Free is very Capitalistic by Charcharodon · · Score: 4, Insightful
    Most people are confused with what Capitalism and Communism are. Capitalism is not about making money, that just happens to be a by product of what it's real intent is, an "efficient" distribution of scarce resources. Communism on the other hand was supposed to be the "fair" distribution of scarce resources, which for all practial purposes is impossible. There is no such thing in life that is ever truly fair nor can it be, beyond age five when mom would measure out exactly the same ammount of ice cream to shut you and your whiny sibling up about who got more, which is why Communism failed.

    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.

  25. Commerce by Sai+Babu · · Score: 2, Interesting

    States can't tax the interstate aspects of POTs calls. The loophole, if a state does want to tax, is at the POTs interface. But hey, they alread tax this for in state calls. Do we want them taxing twice? Now I can see an argument for taxing intrastate VOIP calls becausethey are effectively the same thing from the callers perspective. I don't see how they might discriminate inter/intra though. I can also see an argument against taxing VOIP. States don't tax two way radio calls. Perhaps if the states really want the tax revenue, they might be able to force the sales and use tax aspect of the business. Wy do they want to tax? What service would a state VOIP tax pay for? The state PSC doesn't have any regulatory expenses assocoated with VOIP.

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    Now I'm the grandest Tiger in the Jungle!