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FCC Approves New Internet Phone Taxes
basotl writes to tell us CNet is reporting that the FCC has approved a new round of taxes for internet phone service. Some 4 million users could receive this nasty little surprise as early as their next monthly bill. From the article: "The VoIP industry wasn't alone in questioning the FCC's move. In a letter sent last week to commissioners, attorneys for the U.S. Small Business Administration urged the agency to postpone its action until it had done a thorough analysis of the economic effect on smaller providers."
To think up a way of taxing virtually-free phone calls.
NO NEW TAXES PLEASE!
-- Brought to you by Carl's JR
...but at least Vonage is still cheaper than Comcast or AT&T
Mr. Universe: "They can't stop the signal, Mal. They can never stop the signal."
A VoIP call is just another internet connection between two individuals, sending data back and forth. What makes VoIP so special that it needs taxation? Are they going to tax internet video conferencing and Netmeeting next? Instant messaging? Just another example of old people in government not understanding the differences in new technology.
Oh also that fund that is supposed to "subsidize" rural areas is such a waste. My parents have lived in a rural area for years without DSL and it wasn't made available until a couple years ago. And then, it's 128kbps and it wasn't funded by this stupid fund, but by the local telephone co-op. I'd rather the tax go away.
Would it kill the FCC to allow us to communicate WITHOUT paying protection money?
This outfit is getting entirely too powerful. This crap has to stop.
Gifts for Geeks - Stuff that really matters!
Does the FCC have the authority to levy taxes? Isn't the FCC an executive agency? Have we stopped even pretending that we have a constitutional government?
-Peter
I think this is not so much about tax income as it's about tracking who's speaking to whom.
Dont you already get charged Telecomm taxes if you have DSL, since its basically a phone line anyway?
( i dont have DSL, so no, i cant go look at my bill )
---- Booth was a patriot ----
Do they not aleady get a cut on the internet access (cable or DSL)? Is this not double taxation?
is that I'm already paying communications taxes (of various sorts levied by various taxing bodies) on my Internet connection. Actually, in my case it's a significant chunk of my monthly bill. In any event, this is a discriminatory tax squarely aimed at smaller companies providing an Internet-based service that inconveniences the incumbent telephone companies. So far as I'm concerned it's double-taxation as well, if I happen to use a VoIP service. Way to go, FCC. Let's just open the door to taxing everything on the Internet ... if you can tax me because I happen to use packets formatted for this purpose, what stops the government from taxing packets formatted some other way. Ridiculous on the face of it.
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
So what about audio chat inside online computer games? I can talk to other players in - how is that different from telephony?
If I'm taxed for talking to someone using VOIP but not when I happen to be playing a game at the time - then maybe VOIP providers should include a copy of PONG that you can play with the other person while you talk to them?
The idea that you can tax bytes that contain the human voice in realtime - but you don't tax bytes that contain pictures, or human voice that was recorded a few hours ago...of all the millions of uses for data sent over the Internet - why should realtime human voice be singled out as special. It's just silly.
We either need to tax ALL data transfers over shared communications links or NONE of them. Repeal the tax on telephony or tax broadband the same way you tax dialled telephony - there is no practical difference.
Hmmm - so if I use dialup to connect to the Internet - and then use VOIP - do I get taxed twice? I think that's probably illegal.
The lawyers will make a fortune arguing this one.
www.sjbaker.org
Comment removed based on user account deletion
thanks alot FCC, I shall now make a fortune selling ssh stunnels to canada dedicated to "media traffic".
perpetually dwelling in the -1 pits
A VoIP call is just another internet connection between two individuals, sending data back and forth. What makes VoIP so special that it needs taxation?
Taxes are like climbing mountains: They tax it because they can.
However, how are they going to keep track of what is data, what is voice, what is video, etc? The categories are disappearing as the hardware for media converges. It may require a lot of micromanagement and snooping to make such a distinction for tax categories.
Table-ized A.I.
Its a fee, not a tax. Only Congress can levy taxes.
If they tax VOIP and not other data, then I want a refund for my YEARS of dialup, when my phone line was used for data and not voice.
...but at least Vonage is still cheaper than Comcast or AT&T
Hmm....I notice you have a Comcast email address correct? Sounds like you should have be practicing what you preach first. OTOH, Vonage probably sucks, since you don't already use that service -- and you'd only be getting what you paid for...
Damn it, and I just got my VoicePulse account, which is already expensive with the two lines. Now it has to be more??
Kernel Krunch - Part of a Complete OS
The above is due (FTA) to the fact that the FCC assumes ~65% of VOIP calls are long distance, while less than 30% of wireline and wireless calls are long distance. That makes it sound (to me) like some underhanded lobbying was involved.
In fairness, VOIP that does not connect to the POTS system (e.g. p2p calls) should be excluded as it does not use the same infrastructure and thus should not face the same tax burden. In fact, services such as Skype are excluded from the taxes for this exact reason, so some calculation should be made to determine the percentage of VOIP calls that never touch the POTS system. Other than that, I don't see any reason that VOIP services that use the same resources as the POTS carriers should be granted special exemption from the taxes collected for consuming the same services/infrastructure.
On a side note, my first impression from the summary was that the FCC was levying new taxes specifically against VOIP providers. I got the impression that the FCC was creating new taxes (No taxation without representation!) and that really pissed me off. Upon reading the actual article, that was definitely the implication, however the facts make it obvious that these are existing taxes and VOIP services are only being reclassified so that they fall under the same category as other voice carriers Anyone who thinks they don't -- specifically for services that access the POTS system, not p2p like skype and vonage to vonage calls -- is either ignorant or in denial. Of course, the conversion rate seems extremely off and weighted toward the destruction of VOIP and there doesn't seem to be an allowance for VOIP to VOIP calls which should bypass the regulation. I'm pissed about the extremely questionable fairness of this proclamation, but please present the facts without insinuating that things are happening (FCC creating new tax laws) which are clearly not.
Hilarious, underground railroad.
According to the article, the FCC is imposing a fee if and when the VOIP call interfaces with the PSTN network, ie. when one or more of the parties is using legacy telephone service. The fee does not apply to pure VOIP calls. Unfortunately, it isn't clear if a provider must pay the fee if it *ever* connects to PSTN, or only on a per-call basis. If it's the former, then this is really ridiculous. If it's the latter, then this may make some semblance of sense, annoying though it is. Anybody know which it is?
I bet its not hard to figure out which people this is for...
I think you underestimate just how much I just dont care.
YOu really don't know?
Basically, it reduces to this: the government needs money. You have some. In order to get it from you, they invented this thing they call "taxation".
Now, how does this apply to VOIP? Well, right now at least, VOIP looks like a "luxury tax" - a tax aimed at people who are better off than most (it looks that way because it's new, and not everyone has it). Luxury taxes are great, from the governnment point of vuew, because it's easy to convince the majority to like you if you tax the minority instead of them.
Plus there's the part where the government is losing revenue as people switch from taxed phone service to untaxed VOIP - so tax those rich bastards who are avoiding paying their fair share!!!
Never mind that the people in question aren't especially (or even necessarily) rich.
"I do not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"
- They are not adding a new tax (which would be illegal), they are including a new business under an old tax.
- Only affects carriers who access the phone system, hence not the same as peer-to-peer calls or video game chat, etc, etc.
I wonder what they'd to if someone made this set up:
You speak into a microphone and a speach-to-text program IMs the words to your friend's computer which then reads them aloud. Is that voip? Taxable?
-Grey
Silver Clipboard: Time Management Tips
A VoIP call is just another internet connection between two individuals, sending data back and forth. What makes VoIP so special that it needs taxation? Are they going to tax internet video conferencing and Netmeeting next? Instant messaging? Just another example of old people in government not understanding the differences in new technology.
If you would have read TFA, you would have found out that they are only taxing calls made to the PSTN, not internet only calls. I don't have a problem with that. I do, however, have a problem with the rate discrepency between VoIP companies vs the Bells vs the cell companies. VoIP companies are paying double the amount the incumbents are paying based on an arbitrary percentage (a number not justified in any sort of way).
Oh also that fund that is supposed to "subsidize" rural areas is such a waste. My parents have lived in a rural area for years without DSL and it wasn't made available until a couple years ago. And then, it's 128kbps and it wasn't funded by this stupid fund, but by the local telephone co-op. I'd rather the tax go away.
The rural telephone co-ops in my area are heavily subsidized by Universal Service Funds. I am 99% certain that your DSL is funded by USF.
Fuck you, FCC.
"Eggg-sell-ent Smithers" Said Charles Montgomery "Dubyah" Burns as he clasped his hands together in a manner not unlike that of Chancellor Palpatine, "Something else
"Yes sir," Michael "Smithers" Powell replied, looking longingly at his boss.
Good. Cheap. Fast. Pick Two.
http://www.fcc.gov/
The FCC seems again try to overstep the legal boundaries of its authority. In fact, the legislative underpinnings of the FCC's foundation have become increasingly questionable and, contrary to widespread believe, its authority does NOT extent to internet based personal communication, namely VoIP. This means that should the FCC try to collect taxes from VoIP users you can simply refuse to pay and take the matter to court. There is already a class action lawsuit underway that addresses this issue and that will most likely put a final end to the FCC's attempts to overstep its legal boundaries.
Do these taxes affect people who pay-as-you-go with skype and other voip services that don't have a monthly subscription?
I only pay $3.99/month for VOIP through speakeasy.net (its an add-on to my OneLink DSL connection). These taxes could raise the VOIP portion of my bill by 150% or more.
How long before an encrypted and more discrete method avoids detection and gets under the radar thus avoiding the tax...
Politics is Treachery, Religion is Brainwashing
The art of Taxation consists of so plucking the goose as to obtain the greatest amount of feathers with the least amount of hissing.
Jean Baptiste Colbert (French Economist and Minister of Finance under King Louis XIV of France. 1619-1683)
The same taxes, tarrifs, mule-carried bits that the phone company has been dredging off of people for years. Ever take a vacation? I bet if you left your house for a month, you would probably still spend no less than $39.95 US for a phone you have never used.
:)
Now, let's just add to that convenience by adding DSL service, as well as caller ID, call blocking, call forwarding, etc. etc.
Now, let's also add "phone number preservation" along with every other little charge of which they can think. We choose to be slaves to a number (and it's a pain to learn a new one each time for convenience) but tend to stick with it out of comfort.
Now, add on surcharges for 911 and for "cross boundary lines" and city taxes and district taxes and county taxes and.... I wonder at times when I see those stakes in the ground noting "Zoning Hearing". For all I know, a state could have been split into about thirty zones and each carrier could be charged for a signal that crosses each.
Gotta love government and its way of squeezing money out of people in a very creative fashion. Of course, they're just following the trend nowaday and going after the larger herd of sheep; the younger cell-phoners.
The call may originate from a VoIP phone. But there is a difference between a call terminating to a VoIP phone or a PSTN line. If its the former then all the arguments posted about internet data being charged are valid. But if the termination is to a PSTN network it can be considered valid to tax it just like any other PSTN network taxes.
Much easier to extend this to be a blanket tax on all net communications.
== Jez ==
Do you miss Firefox? Try Pale Moon.
Only two things are certain inlife, death and taxes. (and the death tax)
You can learn a lot about a person if you just take the time to inject them with sodium pentathol
That will be taxed too.
They are NOT taxing Peer-2-Peer VoIP calls, only if the call talks to the actual switched telephone service. I know everyone hates taxes, but really Vonage and the rest were using a loophole to not pay the taxes. All regular telephone calls have the tax applied as a percentage of all revenue generated by long-distance calls and a part of DSL service.
-Bill
If i am not mistaken Your cable or DSL bill already have a tax in it isnt it ? so trying to tax voip call which is carried through the already taxed connection is double taxation if you asked me.
http://iesucks.org
Doesn't this sound related to net neutrality?? We are paying for a specific kind of internet usage. The only difference is now the government is doing it, instead of the telcos.
"If it moves, tax it. If it keeps moving, regulate it. And if it stops moving, subsidize it."
Circumcision is child abuse.
Nay not a single one. Each week there comes up shit to fuck up american citizens either openly or deceivingly, either by congress, or government bureucracy, or directly by president.
Eh, talk about reaping what you saw. Vote the republicans.
'Family values', 'american values', 'traditions' - any improvement on these so far ?
Read radical news here
$2.12 ?
$1.38 ?
Shit, I've had single long distance phone calls that cost more than that.
$2.12 That's like what, 2 Crispy Chicken Nuggets ?
I've got no problems with forking over a couple Jr. Bacon Cheeseburgers to keep the Long Distance Monkeys off my back.
Wanna fight ? Bend over, stick your head up your ass, and fight for air.
It's the left and right hand on the same body.
SearchIRC - Now with live chat directory!
be careful how you argue or they may use this to start taxing other internet data transmissions.
this is govt and they never met a tax they didn't like - regardless of the drivel that talk about around election time.
so, lets turn it round... doesn't this actually give people an incentive to STOP internet users in the USA who have VOIP from using the PSTN altogether, and encouraging their friends to sign up too?
dude1: hey, man, it used to be cheap to call you, but it's now costing more. Why don't you sign up for $VOIP_PROVIDER, then our calls to each other will be free, and we can stop subsidising the old telcos.
dude2: [fx: clickety-click] ok, whatever, I've signed up, my new voip reference is $DUDE2VOIP. yeah, I'm glad not to be putting money into the pockets of greedy $TELCO and suffering random wiretaps.
dude1: don't forget to enable encryption, because otherwise George Bush listens in to every telephone conversation being made.
fx: telcos moaning about how their voice revenue just shrank some more.
So, here's YOUR chance to rally your friends and hammer another nail into the olde worlde telephony systems!
IMO I feel the FCC, or rather the people in control of it currently are the single biggest threat to our democracy.
Media ownership and the parceling out of spectrums seems to be very biased in favor of corps.
Or maybe my tinfoil hat needs tuning.
"If any question why we died, Tell them because our fathers lied."
http://blogs.zdnet.com/ip-telephony/?p=1150
Who are these asshole regulators that can put on a tax with no debate ?
They are more worried about F-ING Wyoming.
The USF tax needs to fricking DIE.
Vonage won't give you the rebate either.
It seems to me now that Vonage is going to have to start charging some taxes, that I'm really just better off moving to a USWest line. The $5 or so I save each month by using Vonage isn't worth the hassle.
The U.S. government wants more of your money to support killing Iraqis.
More war helps those whose friends and family and business associates have investments in weapons and oil, such as the Bush and Cheney families.
--
When Arabs kill, that's bad. When the U.S. govt. kills, that's good?
If I have to subsidize phone service for rural communities, many of which are wealthy, then they should have to subsidize my inner city rent, parking, and other high living expenses. I say let each person pay their own living costs. If you live in a city you pay high rent but get cheap phone service. In a rural area you can buy an acre of land for a couple thousand dollars but you pay $100 a month for a basic phone. Anything else is just welfare.
IIRC, the FCC charter is to regulate & promote communications for the public good. Changes in the way we now communicate has spread the FFC's sphere of influence. Change should be to the Communications Act itself, the underlying authority from which the FCC derives their regulatory authority.
"Glory is fleeting, but obscurity is forever." --Napoleon Bonaparte
I'm serious. Abolish it. I'm a license holder and I still say abolish it. Then re-form it as a bandwidth manager only.
That still doesn't make it constitutional, therefore it is illegal! Why should I, in New Mexico, pay for jack shit in New York? This is the very reason we have STATE governments. It follows the same rationale as allowing the country to pay for a pool in Banning, CA. This is not the way it is supposed to work. If the states actually recieved the majority of the taxes and bypassed the fat federal government you would not bitch about taxes because YOU would see the fruits of them. The taxes you spend WOULD be spent on things that directly affect you, more directly anyways. The previous writer is correct. not only is it a waste, it is not legal. Nor has it ever been. I'm done.
The Captain
On the other hand, whether the VoIP tax should be going to baby Bells (as opposed to subsidizing sattelite access internet for rural areas is a question we should be debating. The article quotes Kohlenberger's amazingly insightful analogy
The good news that this tax is not a flat fee (like a wiretap access) but is taken as a portion of what one already spends, which means those making $3/month worth of calls will likely pay $0.10 and not $2.00 as everybody else
Obama likes poor people so much, he wants to make more of them.
Only calls that reach telco lines are affected by the tax, Internet only calls are not taxed. It's the privilege of being connected to copper telephone wires we're being taxed for, therefore this is not a net neutrality issue. Good thinking, though.
The Universal Service Fund actually does subsidize rural phone users -- poor ones more than richer ones, but a lot of the subsidy goes to the service provider rather than the customer. It's a pretty good chance that without the Universal Service tax, your parents wouldn't have a phone, much less DSL. Or they would be on a party line with 16 other subscribers.
Same thing with schools. A lot fewer elementary or high schools in the US would have Internet connections if it weren't for Universal Service.
Now, I personally, happen to think that getting phone service (and DSL) to rural customers is important. On the other hand I think putting the Internet into schools so that the school can then spend a tidy sum to try to keep viruses and pornography out is kind of dumb. But for some reason they overlooked my name when looking for a candidate to replace Michael Powell (and we should all thank God that he is gone) at the FCC.
Anyway, the US has been subsidizing rural phone users for so long that most of us have forgotten that it happens and we are taxed to support it. We don't have a tax to support DSL to rural areas and as a result, most rural areas don't have broadband. If you believe that subsidizing rural users is important, then taxing calls made via VOIP is perfectly reasonable. (Whether the tax rate is reasonable is a different issue -- and one on which I don't have an opinion.)
You can't see ANYTHING from a car, You've got to get out of the goddamned contraption and walk...Edward Abbey
Are they going to tax internet video conferencing and Netmeeting next? Instant messaging?
Quiet, please. Let's not give them any ideas.
News for Nerds. Stuff that Matters? Like hell.
Your government is going to get its revenue increase even if it can't open the borders. So instead of paying $9000 in rent so 20 million immigrants can join the fun, you'll just pay higher taxes.
However, we're being taxed for the privilege of connecting to copper telephone wires that have already been largely subsidized by the government, so we actually are getting to pay twice. Oh, and the VoIP providers are *already* paying taxes for access to those POTS lines themselves - now their customers will have to directly pay taxes on them too?
Independent VoIP providers represent one of the very few communications mediums in the US that hasn't received generous government subsidies in one form or another, yet they're supposed to pay a larger percentage of the USF?
Please stand clear of the doors, por favor mantenganse alejado de las puertas
Did I miss this memo? What happened to the whole "No taxation with out representation" deal? Is my senetor or congressman (along with reps from all 50 states) on the FCC board?
-Rick
"Most people in the U.S. wouldn't know they live in a tyrannical state if it walked up and grabbed their junk." - MyFirs
FCC Guy 1: Okay, what can we do to piss off the technologically literate population today?
FCC Guy 2: Hey, I know, what about a broadcast flag!
FCC Guy 1: No, that's too obvious. It'd get struck down in no time. We need something more subtle.
FCC Guy 2: Okay... Let's make it so that sites don't get an equal share of bandwidth unless they pay the ISP's money!
FCC Guy 1: Yes, that's a good idea, but it still might encounter a lot of resistence at first. We need something... Annoying, and restricting, but not enough to make geeks get out of their chairs and write letters to congress demanding that we stop shutting down their freedoms...
FCC Guy 2: I know, let's tax EVERYTHING IN SIGHT!
FCC Guy 1: Brilliant!
*High five*
Guy 1: meeting adjourned. Adgenda for next meeting includes discussion of mandatory two way screens on HDTVs, to "thwart piracy"!
I'm beginning to get reminded of the rediculous taxes the Brits had on the US when it was still just 13 colonies, like the "Stamp tax" (which required a special stamp to be put on anything printed), the "Tea tax", and various other things
The secret to creativity is knowing how to hide your sources. - Albert Einstein
Yeah, the parent post is really insightful.
From the summary: ... urged the agency to postpone its action until it had done a thorough analysis of the economic effect on smaller providers.
Aren't these taxes/fees passed along for the subscriber (customer) to pay? If so, how does that have an "economic effect" on the provider? They're not the ones paying it, their customers are.
Or, why would it effect smaller providers differently than larger ones?
so, lets turn it round... doesn't this actually give people an incentive to STOP internet users in the USA who have VOIP from using the PSTN altogether, and encouraging their friends to sign up too?
Yes, absolutely it does. I for one, wouldn't miss the PSTN at all.
Granted, according to TFA the charge proposed is NOT an "AIM/GoogleTalk/etc. tax" as some are implying; it only applies once your data touches the PSTN...but it still seems fuzzy where the line is that makes me part of a "telecommunications service". When an unattended test at my lab faults and sends my phone a midnight SMS via LabView, am I (or our ISP, etc.) supposed to be paying into the FUSF for our half of the wire that leads to that cell carrier?
Caveat Emptor is not a business model.
I am so sick and tired of this crap from our gov't. Spying and invading our privacy, fees and taxes left and right, weird obscure agencies doing stuff that the gov't shouldn't even be doing in the first place, subsidising monopolies, wasting tax money to make a show of supporting a bill that is 100% known to be struck down as unconstitutional, and a whole laundry list of so many other things... It's HORRIBLE! I'm sick and tired; I wish I could fire these jokers.
Please people, don't keep electing back the same morans. Don't vote for Party X because it's what your family does. Grow a pair and vote for someone who will fix whats wrong with this country. I hate to turn around and generalise myself (so please do your research before voting one!), but I find most Libertarian cadidates want to fix our country. PLEASE let's let them.
There's some argument for subsidising infrastructure, but the current model of "taxpayers pay, telcos profit" isn't nessiarily the best plan - it'd be like if the government payed for the construction of a private toll road and then got none of the tolls.
-- The act of censorship is always worse than whatever is being censored. Always.
come on people... seriously. What can this tax be? 2
/month plan. if I pay tax n this, its going to be what? 2 or 3 bucks on top? that is still $25 bucks cheaper than your average phone bill. Even less if you considder how longdi distance is in included in my bill. I think its alright to pay that tax.
We currently switched to Vonage, for their Unlimited 24.99
Its cheaper than lunch money...
Nom de dieu de putain de bordel de merde de saloperie de connard d encule de ta mere.
Bi-partisan system at work. No Libertarian, Green or Southern Independence parties allowed.
If you really, really want to make a difference. Let's see if we can get everyone to withold their vote in the next primary. I didn't say not to go to the voting center... go. Sign in. Walk into your little cabinet and then walk away without casting a single vote for the primary.
Imagine the beauty of an electoral-ly president that didn't receive a single popular vote. Wow... that'd shake things up.
I know, I know... you can say I'm a dreamer.
But I'm not the only one.
So if Republicans are so convinced that taxes are the death of anything good, where are they when we need them?
Since when can an EXECUTIVE BRANCH of the US Government agency declare tax rates?
This has to be unconstitutional. Whats next? The DOJ taxing traffic tickets?
Rural telecommunications; rah-rah-rah!!!
All I know is that this "fee" requires me to dump MY money into paying for telephone service for the boonies, via a telephone company that I hate. How is that capitalistic, again?
You want to live out in the boonies? Pay for your OWN damn wiring. Or use wireless. Or work together with your community.
Why does everyone expect the federal government to pay for their excesses in terms of where they live? Why do people who build houses on sand banks/flood plains expect national flood insurance? Why does New Orleans expect the country to create the worlds largest construction project to protect land that the sea is slowly reclaiming? Why Why Why?
If it doesn't make sense to live where you live, because of financial reasons, don't expect the government to bail you out. Unfortunately, we seem to live in the exact opposite situation; where you receive substantial federal benefits to build your "family" farm out in the middle of Nebraska, 100s of miles from anything, and the government will build your phone lines, and keep the prices of your crops high.
Feels good sucking on the government teat, huh?
WhiteWolf666 an exBush supporter. All you new-school,compassionate,save the children Republicans can rot in hell
Well - I guess we'll have to encrypt the packets so nobody knows WTF they are. This was probably an oversight when the net was designed anyways.
If we cypher everything but the IP address... this includes the port information - IE - a wrapper to a cyphered port - then once the communication is established (via ssl probably) then we solve all sorts of problems including varying packet delivery based on the packet type (because the carrier wants to gain an unfair competative advantage for say their own video service) as well as other benefits.
So we have to re-think some protocols and reprogram some servers. Ok - I'm a programmer and I'm game!!!
If you would have read TFA, you would have found out that they are only taxing calls made to the PSTN, not internet only calls. I don't have a problem with that.
Last I checked (2 seconds ago), I already pay the USF on my data line. No, BTW, I do *not* have land-line telephone service, just data via FiOS. So now I'll get to pay twice.
I'd like to see the apoointment books and bank records of every voting member on the FCC. The only reason to do this is because somebody from their favorite ILEC "asked" them to.
To make matters worse, the fund has frequently been subject to fraud from both inside and outside. The government has no business collecting this money and deciding how to dole it out. All the things the fund is purportedly for could be achieved by mandates in exchange for the monopoly access we give to a shinking number of companies to build the infrastructure required to provide these services.
How does the tax/fee work if you are getting your phone service from another country? Vonage already has a strong market in the UK (they do have VAT there however). It will not take too long before some VoIP provider just moves off shore and then is able to offer even cheaper service without the fees. We just love off shore solutions in the USA! ...profit :)
Besides that, this whole VoIP battle is a serious race to the bottom with it getting cheaper and cheaper (then free). Once it hits free, 30%/65%/100% tax on free is still nothing.
They have bigger problems than taxes if they are worried about revenues.
For instance, if you have a free service that is supported by ads. Then you pay zero taxes on the free service and derive money from other sources such as advertising (it also makes billing easier). The FCC gets nothing, you still get to profit off the ads, and the users get free VoIP.
Step 1. By pass FCC fee
Step 2. Offer service that makes money
Prove he died.
Blar.
I live in a rural area and fiber glass cables are running through the street to serve people in another township up the hill. I can't get anything faster than 56k though, we can only get a second line which stinks because of the huge interference (and verizon doesn't want to fix it). And those stupid backward FCC laws which state that EVERYONE should be able to get internet... they state that the minimum acceptable is 14kbits or something along those lines. Because I can on occasion get a whole whopping 30k on 1 line when I connect, Verizon thinks they shouldn't fix the problem. That the internet disconnects when the other phone line rings is not a problem according to them. And yes, I have tried connecting on their box outside, same issues. I have cat5e running through the house for phone and a separate cat5e for network. That is what the Universal Service Fund is doing for us: getting drained by executives and local politicians speculating whether we should get DSL/Cable (they have been speculating the last 2 years) or if they shouldn't invest in it because a nearby school might get shut down. It is going to take at least 2-3 years before somebody is MAYBE going to connect our houses to the main cable running through our street. Another problem is that the township does not want to give permission to Atlantic BB because they would be a monopoly on the local market then. Verizon could offer DSL but doesn't want to upgrade their sucky phone lines (it costs too much). I know this because a good friend of mine is an executive for the broadband company and has been in negotiations for the last 2 years. The time negotiations take place are then being brought in by the companies (and probably local politicians too) as expenses for the Universal Service Fund ($100/hour for an executive to go to sit, eat and drink + travelling costs).
Custom electronics and digital signage for your business: www.evcircuits.com
The rural telephone co-ops in my area are heavily subsidized by Universal Service Funds. I am 99% certain that your DSL is funded by USF.
Probably but USF should be done away with period. Principally because I'm sure most don't feel some strugling family living in the city (where they are already paying higher costs for everything else) needs to subsidize phone service for some farmer or rancher that lives out in the country because they choose to. Not to mention their service blows anyway. I was a customer I can say that. Christ if it rained too hard my line would be screwed for days. Thank God for the cable company. My point is when the money is just handed to them, it'll most likely be used with little oversight and *gasp* wasted. Say it ain't so. They got the ill communication.
Shouldn't we have gotten to vote on this? Or at least been given a little pamphlet of information about it before hand? WTF!!!
You must be new here.
"The newly born animals are then whisked off for a quick run through a giant baking oven." --heard on Food Network
It's actually an example of you not understanding the fee.
If you read the fine article it says in the second sentence that VOIP will be charged when it connects to the PSTN network (yeah yeah, ATM machine, deal with it). This isn't discriminatory against VOIP; all other voice services including cell phones are charged when they connect to the PSTN network. VOIP to VOIP won't be charged because that's independent of the PSTN network.
So far the VOIP companies have been getting a free ride because they've been sending voice traffic over the PSTN network without paying the fee. This makes VOIP->PSTN look cheaper than PSTN->PSTN partly because the customer isn't paying the same fees as the PSTN providers. With the fee in place there will be even more encouragment for customers to switch to pure VOIP->VOIP.
And just out of curiosity if a bunch of us get together and agree to let VOIP calls use our landlines for our local area codes, would that be about the same as tax evasion now? It seems like most VOIP providers don't have service in Hawaii anyway, which is where most of the family that I want to talk to is located these days. If I could convince my less technical relatives to set up a SIP connection to my local machine, I could just make them an extension on my asterisk box without all the rigamarole of having to deal with the telco at all.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
is that this admin, like all republicans, claims to be pro-business. But it, like many over the last 40 years, really is not.
What it is, is pro-establish big business. And more like, pro anybody who puts thouasand/millions in their pocket. It is actions like this that shows that unless we outlaw lobbying and start paying for candidate races, we (the USA) are in serious trouble of being the fasicist country that Eisenhower warned us about.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
good point.... now the'll start taxing your data to compensate.
THE WORLD IS GOING TO END!!!! eventually.
What will be very interesting is to see how the FCC will apply this charge to European based VOIP companies. Surely the FCC being a US organisation and not having any authority in Europe will prevent them from applying any charges to any European citizens? This is a flagrant way the US is attempting to get the taxing of the internet through the back door and should be stopped immediately.
But taxation's like that. A couple of examples: The US had different import duties on dolls than from toys. There was a court battle over whether X men figures counted as oys or Dolls. Many countries tax different types of alcohol differently. SUVs are taxed differently from sports cars even though that's what a lot of them are. There is absolutely no consistency to taxation at all.
I know everyone hates taxes, but really Vonage and the rest were using a loophole to not pay the taxes.
I doubt that. Basically I see the VoIP operators offering such services as PSTN subscribers, because VoIP to PSTN transition must happen on some node of the PSTN network and obviously based on an agreement with the PSTN operator. Therefore all taxes relative to this physical node have already been paid! FCC is just greedy here.
Imagine you installed a VoIP-to-PSTN device at your home so that all calls you're making from your possibly multiple VoIP devices appear as a regular calls via land line (in this simplest case only one call at a time will be possible). Will it be reasonable to tax you in this situation? Where are the taxes unpaid?
But what about this then?
d =15600258
http://yro.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=189417&ci
"'Family values', 'american values', 'traditions' - any improvement on these so far ?" Improvements? Improvement is antithetical to a conservative mindset. In 1956 everything was near perfect, Ike & Dicki ran the show, wifey and minorities knew their place. The only real big problems were those pesky unions and that damn rock % roll. For them everything since 1956 has went to hell in a hand basket. Improvement that sounds "progressive" to me. Ya must be one of those darned ole malcontent liberals--dirty word :).
Matthew
Pull a PirateBay and move the servers to another country. Hey, how about moving them so Sweden!
I worked with a number of nonprofits where an IT company would cold-call a nonprofit (school) and present a complete package including all IT services and hardware where they also write the grant for E-Rate funds. From the NPO perspective, they got it all for nothing. Looking at the grant in more detail, the E-Rate program had a cap of 100K per applicant and the IT company would inflate its service prices to 100K no matter how small the application. I saw small neighborhood charter schools in Milwaukee presented with IT systems with capacity more befitting a hosting company. The real problem was when the next year's bills start coming in to the NPO, when all the E-Rate funds had dried up, they're stuck with bills like $1500/mo. for 1Mb Internet access, $1500/mo for a web site hosting, $2500 desktop computers, $500-per drop wiring costs, ad nauseum.
Its really disgusting how long this has been going on unchecked. The FCC needs to get its act together.
The point of this tax is to only tax those voip services who use land lines. It is the same as when telcos tried to backhaul all their long distance calls across their backbone and circumvent charges and taxes. If you use point to point voip w/o using land lines or a service that uses land lines then you won't or shouldn't be taxed. But if you use Vonage or such who do use land lines to make calls then you will be taxed.
Really... 'cos as I understood it, the FCC is all appointed.
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Absolutely.
But VoIP, as generally used by the public involves links to the legacy phone system. I use Vonage to call my parents and extended family, and friends... on their regular phones. This is where they think they need to regulate.
if it was purely over the phone, all SIP calls, no links to the regular phone system, the FCC would have no ground to stand on.. but it's not the case.
I know everything about the FCC.
[]'s Carlos Cardoso - Becoming a brazilian ProBlogger, typo by typo
The majority must want more taxes and more restrictions, because they have voted for it. Me, I didn't vote for Bush. I didn't even vote for Gore. I only vote Libertarian. I voted for less taxes, less government, and most importantly, I voted for freedom.
So any of you complaining here about these taxes that also voted for our current government should have nothing to complain about.
The above is not worth reading.
Really... 'cos as I understood it, the FCC is all appointed.
By our ELECTED representatives.
What?
Right. 'cos elected office candidates are required to expose their appointment plans before they can run. And 'cos the US electoral process is anything like properly fair to the losing side of a vote.
Hell, I've always throught the office of president should be a committee of those candidates who ran - the votes define what percentage of a vote on a specific issue goes to whom. It'd avoid all this bullshit we have with Bush; Kerry would be getting most of the control, and Bush and Nader would have to agree on something to override him (given last election's polls).
Meanwhile, even the lesser candidates (libertarians, I'm looking at you) would at least have input on executive action.
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When enough peole want to change things, they will change. Most everybody is too confortable to give a damn. There is no doubt. We are adrift. We're asleep at the wheel. But nobody is going to rescue us. The guy in the mirror simply has to become aware of what he is doing. The header of this thread is a perfect statement on the current state of affairs. The trolls were elected in a system that most people are perfectly willing to accept. And they don't want to hear that they have been duped. They take it as a personal assault on their intelligence. And on top of that, most are voting for their own persanl insterests, voting themselves entitlements, tax cuts(that never materialize), etc. They will vote to kill or torture neighbor if it will fatten their wallet. These are the people you're up against. The guy next door. Not BIGCORP or government. Those people all get their power from you and your neighbors.
What?