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More Fallout From FCC VoIP Decision
EconomyGuy writes "While many of us have been celebrating the recent FCC decision to keep regulation off of VoIP, but there may be some undesirable results for those progressive geeks who believe government should do more than provide military defense. As VoIP takes off as a replacement for the traditional copper-wire network, local and state governments are going to lose more and more funding for important services like 911 and Universal Service."
I'm not American , but I see America going the wrong way and cutting funding for the wrong things (ok, it's not a socialist state) ... Education, Healthcare, Emergency services are things which have intangible returns on investment.
Imagine a police force based on capitalismQuidquid latine dictum sit, altum videtur
No, 911 is NOT dying. It's an essential service, and a huge portion of the North Americain population has it ingrained to call that number in case of emergency. A fair number of people don't even know that the fire/ambulance/police departments even HAVE other phone numbers. Not all, or even a majority by any stretch, but enough to be highly significant. What I see as more likely is a sort of centralization of both the telecommunication and the 911 services. If VoIP is continent wide, then eventually 911 is going to have to be too. In the future, the first question won't be whether you need Police, Ambulance, or Fire, it will be "What state or province are you in?". Doing so will probably increase the lag time in recieving 911 services, unfortunatly, but it's a heck of a lot better than loosing the service altogether. Charging a fee per Mb won't really work. Sure, they'll get to massively boost their revenue (on a per call basis, make massively more. How much traffic in a given area's actually VoIP and not, say, MMORG or bitorrent?) Sure, they'll keep the funding for 911 and others, but if everyone's shifted to VoIP, then those services will need/have a budget a tiny fraction of the size they do now, since no-one's on copper lines anymore. Unless everyone's required to have a regular line for emergencies, or something.
Z
Think that was bad? Someone broke into my house. Waiting time on 911 was 15 minutes. Police showed up 2 hours later.
This was four years ago. Could it possibly get any worse?
In Brazil, at least the traffic police is a Private company, and it's working great for us corruption filled third worlders :)
I'm not from Brazil, but I'm willing to try a non-state police department.
PROFIT is what drives the world.
"Couldn't 911 wire VoIP into their switchboard and treat VoIP calls and pots calls the same?"
Sure, but how would that help them collect taxes to pay for it? Currently, there is a special tax on my phone bill that goes entirely to fund 911 service. They aren't allowed to charge that tax to VoIP users. Note that this tax is not charged for calling 911; it's charged for having a POTS phone.
It's not like 911 pays for calls made *TO* them now. Their main costs are for personnel to answer the calls and dispatch the police. Their salaries are paid by a tax on phone service. No tax, no salaries, no 911. Of course, they could just pay for 911 out of the police budget, which would make more sense anyway (and be more progressive; the 911 tax is on a per phone basis; police are funded by property taxes, where more wealth means more property and thus more taxes).
What? It's the 21st century. The Universal Service fee is bullshit. What part of the country is without telephone lines?
The Universal Service fee is a subsidy for the well to do. Developers subdivide former farmland and put nice big houses on them. The phone companies need to build phone lines out to them, putting up poles, stringing cable and what not. The Universal Service Fee is a way for them to recoup that loss.
It isn't about providing phones to poor underpriveledges children in Arkansas.
LK
"Hi. This is my friend, Jack Shit, and you don't know him." - Lord Kano
Only a fool pays that much in taxes.
I pay what I am supposed to pay, I work on the books and there is no way around it. I don't have an accountant, and there is nothing I can do short of declaring my home a non profit orginization. You do bring up a good point though, many people in the upper 3% of the population find ways around the system leaving middle and middle-upper class to pick up the check.
I also pay insurance and 401K since they are not included in my taxes, so I live off only a fraction of my income. It is a good thing I don't have student loans or I'd be living with my parents still.
Saying Java is nice because it works on all OS's is like saying that anal sex is nice because it works on all genders.
What about the people born in rural areas who didn't choose to live there? If the school district is so poor that no matter how disciplined a student you are, there's no chance you'll get a good education. And the telecom is so bad that you can't reach out beyond your county to seek out that education for yourself, how are you suposed to claw yourself up out of poverty so you can move?
The idea that if you're disciplined enough you can go rags to riches is naiive and oversimplified. If you want to be a sailor, there needs to be an ocean for you to sail on. You do need to be motivated and have drive to advance yourself, but there are resources you need available to you to make it happen.
Literally, if you want to move out of the sticks, you're sure going to use that interstate highway the people in the city paid taxes for you to have. People don't just 'Choose' to stay in a rotten situation. They have to have the support system in place to make that dream attainable once they choose to go for it.
> Everybody wins.
Note that this example is even more telling. The rich and the poor people benefit from the regulation. The government is indifferent because the 911 service is revenue neutral. The only person who would be against this idea is someone who notices that the rich people are willing to pay up to $200 for the service. Let's call this guy Hank.
So if Hank were to set up a parallel service and charge $200 for it, his profit will be as follows: ($200 x 10 users) - ($1000 + $10 x 10 users) = $900. So instead of this being a break-even service where the rich pay $101 and the poor pay $11, Hank charges the rich $200 and doesn't serve the poor at all, and he makes $900. Obviously this goes against the best interest of the rich and the poor, so Hank handles this by railing indiscriminately against "regulation" and the like.
So when he gets his service set up, he uses the fear of taxation and this newly created hatred for "regulation" to make the rich and poor think they would pay more if the government stepped in, when actually, they would pay less.
Since the government is generally indifferent (it was a revenue neutral program), it doesn't matter if Hank does this. In fact, if Hank is a large contributor to party in power, they might even encourage it.
Insert simplistic political, ideological, or personal proselytization here.
this is like the gas tax in California. Since 1998 a 16% increase in miles traveled yet a 8% DECREASE in the taxes coming in from the tax applied to a gallon of gas. Why? because of better fuel economy, hybrids, and electric cars that all use the roads but pay less to do so. So the good in using less gas is going to cause the infastructure in CA to crumble for lack of funding....Always something on the otherside of the same coin.