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FCC Panel Wants To Tax Internet-Using Businesses, Give the Money To ISPs (arstechnica.com)
The FCC's Broadband Deployment Advisory Committee (BDAC), which includes members like AT&T, Comcast, Google Fiber, Sprint, and other ISPs and industry representatives, is proposing a tax on websites to pay for rural broadband. Ars Technica reports: If adopted by states, the recommended tax would apply to subscription-based retail services that require Internet access, such as Netflix, and to advertising-supported services that use the Internet, such as Google and Facebook. The tax would also apply to any small- or medium-sized business that charges subscription fees for online services or uses online advertising. The tax would also apply to any provider of broadband access, such as cable or wireless operators. The collected money would go into state rural broadband deployment funds that would help bring faster Internet access to sparsely populated areas. Similar universal service fees are already assessed on landline phone service and mobile phone service nationwide. Those phone fees contribute to federal programs such as the FCC's Connect America Fund, which pays AT&T and other carriers to deploy broadband in rural areas.
The BDAC tax proposal is part of a "State Model Code for Accelerating Broadband Infrastructure Deployment and Investment." Once finalized by the BDAC, each state would have the option of adopting the code. An AT&T executive who is on the FCC advisory committee argued that the recommended tax should apply even more broadly, to any business that benefits financially from broadband access in any way. The committee ultimately adopted a slightly more narrow recommendation that would apply the tax to subscription services and advertising-supported services only. The BDAC model code doesn't need approval from FCC commissioners -- "it is adopted by the BDAC as a model code for the states to use, at their discretion," Ajit Pai's spokesperson told Ars. As for how big the proposed taxes would be, the model code says that states "shall determine the appropriate State Universal Service assessment methodology and rate consistent with federal law and FCC policy."
The BDAC tax proposal is part of a "State Model Code for Accelerating Broadband Infrastructure Deployment and Investment." Once finalized by the BDAC, each state would have the option of adopting the code. An AT&T executive who is on the FCC advisory committee argued that the recommended tax should apply even more broadly, to any business that benefits financially from broadband access in any way. The committee ultimately adopted a slightly more narrow recommendation that would apply the tax to subscription services and advertising-supported services only. The BDAC model code doesn't need approval from FCC commissioners -- "it is adopted by the BDAC as a model code for the states to use, at their discretion," Ajit Pai's spokesperson told Ars. As for how big the proposed taxes would be, the model code says that states "shall determine the appropriate State Universal Service assessment methodology and rate consistent with federal law and FCC policy."
We're letting *AT&T, Comcast, Google Fiber, Sprint, and other ISPs and industry representatives* write our tax code. I guess it's better than letting Enron, Exxon, and DuPont write them... Oh wait, they probably do
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
Because you haven't given ISPs enough ways to screw the consumer and make money already? Unbelievable.
who tend to vote for them. Not that I mind rural communities getting the Internet, but not like this. Make it municipal broad bank. A country just did it for about $5 bucks a month. Verizon got billions of my money to build out rural fiber, kept the money and never did the work.
No more. Fund municipal broadband out of the General fund or tell the fuckers to fuck off. All this does is charge me $5 bucks a month (I pay for business class at home) for free money in AT&Ts hands.
Once again, we've got an election in 2 years. Show up at your primary and vote the fuckers out. Then show up at the general and put some real pro-consumer folks in. We had plenty of them in the primary in 2018 but so few showed up for the primary that most of these yahoo incumbents survived. Again, no more. Primary them and then vote in pro-worker and pro-consumer reps who refuse corporate PAC money.
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Of course, pass along the tax the an almost completely unrelated party. One who doesnâ(TM)t receive any government subsidies or contracts to perform said service. One who often receives no direct monetary compensation for their services.
I propose that AT&T, Comcast, Google Fiber, Sprint, and other ISPs be taxed at an ever increasing tax rate for every year they fail to meet their broadband commitments. The collected taxes can be used to pay for municipally owned infrastructure in areas where said providers are obviously incapable of meeting their agreed upon targets.
Dumb ass people, if you think it's the road you need to talk to the ports.
Since "Internet-using" companies already pay their ISPs for access and bandwidth, like everyone else does, perhaps the ISPs could take some their -- what do you call them, ah, yes -- enormous profits and use them to build rural infrastructure all on their own. Sure, perhaps the ROI / profits from that won't be enough to list under the "Rape and Pillage" section of the quarterly reports, but maybe people will hate ISPs a little less -- except, obviously, for Comcast. :-)
It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
...we sue AT&T, Comcast, and Verizon for the $400 billion of public funding they already received for rural broadband and just pocketed and we can use that to provide rural broadband?
Grosjean v. American Press Co., 297 U.S. 233 (1936). Minneapolis Star Tribune Company v. Commissioner, 460 U.S. 575 (1983). Government cannot tax speech activity. Newspaper taxes ruled unconstitutional. Ink taxes unconstitutional.
Government can only tax speech items with "generally applicable sales tax". An internet tax is 100% unconstitutional. End of discussion.
to make a new innovative network that's community broadband ISP aware.
Let a monopoly telco return with a network they 100% control and demand a town/city accepts that monopoly network they pay for?
Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
Two things wrong with this plan.
You mentioned the first one: handing tax money to ISPs.
The second one:
We have far too many different taxes, and associated paperwork and bureaucracy, already. No need to invent a new type of tax. If we DID want to give taxpayer money to X, just write them a check and if that means increasing taxes, do it. Propose a 1% increase in the existing taxes to pay for it. We don't need 784 different taxes.
We had a discussion here on Slashdot about that last week.
Even before you see the top line of your paycheck, two taxes have been invisibly taken out of your pay, "paid by the company", they say, but it's part of the cost of employing you - really part of your pay. Then three more taxes come out that show up on your paycheck. As you take your paycheck to the bank, you're paying gas tax to drive your car, which you pay an annual tax on. Take the money out of the bank and spend it? Sales tax. Pay the mortgage with it? Property tax. Pay a doctor bill or buy something at Walgreens? Obamacare tax. The same money taxed over and over and over. Just tax our paychecks at 60% and get it over with already.
Universal service was a way to force the telecoms to subsidize rural customers by charging urban customers and businesses a little more. This makes it possible to live (having a phone was a requirement of active economic life in society back then, broadband is now) in rural America.
But this isn't that. This is using that as a way to force EVERYONE ELSE to foot the bill, so that they can get paid by other companies to do the building out of the network that they should do anyway. It's not about building out broadband, although that might be a side effect. It's about taxing every business in America and giving their money to big telecom.
Hey felluh my family pays those taxes! Or should I say those weirdos who use all my bandwidth
it's like giving the gas tax to private toll roads and no they will not be made into free roads.
You're already paying the fuckers! CenturyLink is being paid $500 MILLION in tax money yearly for rural broadband expansion and they're only using it to cover areas that someone else covers already so they can stifle competition, completely ignoring unserved areas. The rationale behind municipal broadband bans is that it's unfair to compete with the government because they have tax authority, yet they gladly take tax money and use it to be anti-competitive. NO MORE TAX MONEY TO BIG ISPs!
They can't tax Internet use. It's literally against the law.
But don't let that stand in the way of FCC announcing to the country how totally, utterly and completely corrupt they are.
...in infrastructure projects like this one, right?
Well, you got net neutrality overturned. So go invest in that infrastructure now... Oh wait, you don't want to pay for it now. What's your lame-ass excuse now?
You lying, greedy, ******* bastards.
They're not going to get squat, but the GOP will get a photo op where they tell them they're gonna get Internet and the propaganda news outlets they watch will trumpet that. Then when the Internet never materializes they'll blame it on tax and spend liberals' job killing regulations.
Keep in mind I'm not necessarily blaming the Rural folks for falling for this crap. The big reason I want them to have internet is so they can stop watching cable and over air TV and get out of the propaganda bubble their in. I think it would be great for the country as a whole. Those communities have massive hospital shortages and problems with clean drinking water. The American left (think the Bernie wing of the Democratic party) wants to solve those problems, but they keep losing elections to rural voters (who, thanks to the Senate, Electoral college and gerrymandering have about 40x the voting power of a city voter) keep shooting down attempts to help them.
If we could somehow get the message to them about how much the GOP is screwing them over we could fix just about everything.
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WE WILL FUCK CONSERVATARDED TRAITORS' INBRED ASSHOLES IN PRISON. What, does that bother you? You're going to prison, you will be buggered. This is what happens to FUCKING TRAITORS. DEAL WITH IT.
PUSHING DEBUNKED WHITE SUPREMACIST PROPAGANDA AFTER CORRECTED
Nazi homosexual recruiter RAY MORRIS pushing debunked Nazi propaganda even after corrected, #ROPE
...and the donkey he rode in on! Hopefully he'll be an add-on to the Trump impeachment proceedings.
And since every business today use the internet in some form, it would apply to all. It would be so easy to, we could tax monthly each business and we could even go according to there connection speed and bandwidth usage...
Wait....
I've reported posts just like this, but nothing happens. Sometimes they don't even get modded to -1.
I'd like Slashdot's editors and ownership to explain why they're tolerant of posts calling for people to be lynched. This is not protected free speech; it is illegal. Whipslash needs to explain himself about why these posts are tolerated.
as give away to rural communities. A rural voter has somewhere around 40x the voting power of a city voter thanks to our Senate, Electoral College and Gerrymandering. We need to get those folks to stop falling for this crap and get on the side of the rest of the working class.
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for a build out that never fucking happened?
You know, Comcast did it to Netflix before.
Looks like they are gonna do it again and this time, going after EVERYTHING.
When I had a small business, every year I had to fill out forms to pay business personal property tax of less than $5. The state actually called me, somewhat angrily, about another tax that was less than a dollar.
How much do you think it cost the state to provide an office, computer, etc, and pay the person, to call people about a 87 cent tax? Plus the cost of the forms, my time filling out the forms, etc. It's just a compete waste.
And eat it to
It's worse, it's like suggesting Walmart should pay road tax because how else are their customers going to get to the store.
The US government has already giving a TON of money to the various ISPs for them to upgrade their network to fiber years ago.
What did the ISPs do with that money? They certainly haven't upgraded their network. It all went in the deep pockets of the executives and maybe a few wireless deployments here and there.
Pretending this money will go toward rural broadband development is just an excuse to get more money that they don't deserve.
Apply to any business the benefits from broadband internet ? Does that apply to AT&T and Comcast as well as they are entirely dependent on the internet and broadband ?
errr....umm...*whooosh* *whoosh* Is this thing on ?
Once you start Taxing things, it doesn't stop and it won't ever go away.
I seem to have heard this somewhere before:
No taxation without representation...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
Speaking of taxes, here's one for the books. There's gold in them thar texts!
I'd like Slashdot's editors and ownership to explain why they're tolerant of posts calling for people to be lynched. This is not protected free speech; it is illegal. Whipslash needs to explain himself about why these posts are tolerated.
Censorship was key to enabling rise of Hitler and means by which rest of Germany and friends fell in line behind him.
Calling for censorship is no different than calling for resurrection of the third reich and by extension the extermination of all non-Aryans.
They are still wanting to tax internet connections to counter the money lost to illegal downloads....
Taxed Enough Already? :) Ah there's that acronym again...
...which to be fair, is exactly what happens. The Highway Trust Fund hasn't covered its costs from Gas Taxes/etc for decades now, it's needed propping up from the general fund for a while. (And the HTF was always a bit of a con anyway, but that's a discussion for another time)
You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
Note, they are calling mobile internet rural broadband now, some of the most expensive bandwidth to purchase as a consumer.
We want to tax businesses to pay the wireless providers for their already lucrative business.
Seems like businesses don't want the hassle of creating a successful business, but would rather get subsidies from those who put in the effort.
"You should always go to other people's funerals; otherwise, they won't come to yours." -- Yogi Berra
..of putting a Verizon/industry shill in charge of the FCC. *This* is what it was about. A money and power grab by the already entrenched 'big guys' to lock it all in on their behalf.
I remember how ISPs had to pay telcoms because they were too big and needed more money to continue giving an overpriced product that was being phased out.
Hmm, does that include taxing the ISPs as well? Seems to describe their business model.
So I am an old (52) Unix software developer. I run my own mail server (don't much like other people reading my email), and support my own web server, so to get a Fixed IP address and run my own private (not commercial) server in my basement, I must buy a Comcast Business Account. I pay $144.51/month for Internet ONLY, just so I can host my own mail server and web server for my own use. This service is $35/month for a customer if I am not a "Business", however Comcast blocks the ports I need unless I pay for a business account simply because I want to make use of my account!! Good way to drive the tech people out of the USA. I am quite sure to corporate customers can just write it off, but for the rest of us, we get screwed as always!
Someone's Ajitating for a hurt real bad. Where are the Trump defenders?
Those who do not learn from commit history are doomed to regress it.
They pay for their own bandwith.
It's the customers on these networks that GENERATE the requests for traffic.
It's not like these services are simply broadcasting into these networks.
Fucking retarded.
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
problem solved
Can't have universal healthcare but they can implement corporate welfare to redistribute our wealth to rich corporations?
Nazi homosexual recruiter RAY MORRIS pushing debunked Nazi propaganda even after corrected, #ROPE
I love you people... each morning, I wake up and read Slashdot and love learning nifty new works like "Murican" and "Libtard" and "Lean-jig". If it weren't for Slashdot, I don't think I'd be able to keep my relationship to the U.S. strong. There's nothing as beautiful as people calling themselves Americans displaying their true American spirit by showing us what "United we stand" and "United States" and "With liberty and justice for all" etc... really mean.
... was it "Murican" way of defining a person who votes sometimes Democrat and sometimes Republican and sometimes independent. And when they vote, they vote based on the individual not on the party they belong to. And sometimes they vote simply to attempt to support the constitution and the spirit of the country by hoping to ensure that checks and balances remain in place? Is there a word for people who are neither liberal or conservative by instead are educated and actually care about the wellbeing and hopefully also the needs of as many American people as possible?
... let me borrow your term... libtards who oppose everything the current administration does. This is the same as how people like yourself probably disliked most everything Obama's administration attempted to do. People like you and them tend to believe there must be a team sport involved in politics. It is almost as if you have define yourself as a supporter of a team and whether you agree with the actions of your own team or not, it's more important that the other team loses face. As such, when a member of one team or another proposes something which could in fact be good for everyone, instead of working together to represent the overall best interests of everyone, each team attempts to sabotage the other's efforts. This is in fact the current systematic approach to American politics because nearly everyone today votes for
Tell me, what's the really cool
I suppose you would have a lovely word to describe people like us. It wouldn't be something simple like idiot or asshole... at least I hope it wouldn't. Maybe you have a suitable onomatopoeia or maybe a portmanteau?
Also... to let you know... while I voted for and supported Obama, I would voted for Bush if he opposed Clinton this time as I don't believe in Clinton and I believe Jeb would be little more than a puppet for the party like his brother and father before him. Though I would have voted for Sanders against pretty much any of the candidates this time around... even if I consider him a sellout for joining a party. And if I knew that "orange man" stood a chance of winning, I might have registered as republican just to help Romney get into place because I didn't think it was fair that republicans ended up being unrepresented in the last election. In fact, Romney has grown up a little since he ran for president and I think that if he would actually take a few classes on history and politics at a university and he did some night school and learned about the constitution and the actual scope of the office of the president, he would be a good president now.
I'm also at a loss over "sonoppose". I know a guy like you, he was trying to be a 20 year man in the army and he pissed so many people off that they waited until the absolute last minute possible to screw him out of his 20. He makes these words up too and when people disagree with him, he speaks in what sounds like a poor down syndrome impersonation saying things like "Murican" and such. To be honest, I'm not sure what this is meant to accomplish other than what a child might do by mimicking another person as annoyingly as possible. Of course, when a child does this to an adult, an adult simply ignores it an considers the child's behaviour something that will hopefully improve with maturity.
On a more serious note, let's address you're assertion I can only interpret as meaning that people don't like the recent policies of the FCC because they don't like Trump.
I believe there may be some truth to this. I believe there are
Actually, if you didn't have your own Worker's Comp policy as a subcontractor for 3M, then the insurance company covering 3M for Worker's Comp would have billed 3M for your coverage. Worker's Comp premiums are based off of payroll and it's an accounting exercise to correlate payments to subcontractors with their WC policy numbers to then deduct those amounts from their own payroll totals that are used to calculate the WC premiums for 3M. This was not the state of MN demanding 3M furnish all their subcontractors' WC policy numbers. This was 3M leveraging the subcontractor relationship to reduce their operating expenses as much as possible.
$5 / month hosted VPS on linux = awesome!
Space based systems, 1-web and starlink, are about to deliver GB speeds to all over, and now FCC is addressing rural.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
The path to hell really is paved with good intentions. I'm sure many want rural areas to be connected, but a federal program is the worst way to do this.
Our founders were wise men - they knew that a powerful federal government is far easier to corrupt than a bunch of smaller state governments. That's why our constitution enumerates specific powers for the federal government and leaves the rest to the states via the 10th amendment.
The FCC should be regulating wireless frequency and power - and that's it. Even this should require a constitutional amendment to give the feds the power to do so.
Let individual states figure out how to do this on their own. Some will build muni networks, others will partner with private telcos. There are lots of ways to get infrastructure built. Having the feds do this almost guarantees that the entire process will become corrupt.
They already solved this by paying the telco's to wire/fibre up rural areas. The telco's pinky sweared they would but just pocketed the money instead.
You can thank Obama for the disgrace that is rural broadband in this country.
Haven't these companies been subsidized for years to do this and failed to?
Wow but Ajit Pai is really about giving his real bosses all the perks and skimmed off money he can manage, isn't he?
This is rent seeking, plain and simple .. hey, nice internet-using business you have there, shame if something happened to it.
Assholes.
perhaps the ISPs could take some their -- what do you call them, ah, yes -- enormous profits and use them to build rural infrastructure all on their own
They are. Not to the extent we want them to, but to a certain extent, they are. They just want someone else to foot the bill.
But if they get this way, I guarantee you that they will define "rural" as generously as possible (because they're already writing the rules), to maximize how much of this money they can spend on -existing- customers that they already provide service to. Then, that money they -used- to spend on existing customers, now covered new tax revenues, can be kept as profit.
Kinda like how when states were debating the green-lighting of lotteries, all the politicians promised, "A portion of the profits will be dedicated to education! Think of the children!" Then the moment the lottery was up and running, politicians cut existing educational budgets to offset the increase from the lottery and gave tax breaks to all the big corporations.
If it moves, tax it. If it's dead, subsidize it.
The marketing could use a bit of work. If you swap Internet for Phone, then it's tax every business that uses the phone for the business they do over the phone. Probably not a plan that would fly.
But the moral justification sounds great on the surface. Propose a Robinhood maneuver and then swap the rich/poor relationship on both sides of the transaction.
Claim to take from the evil, rich Internet OTT providers and give to the nice poor rural folks.
But on the goes-into side, actually take from normal Internet users.
And on the comes-outof side, pass the cash thru the not so poor telcos.
Who historically mostly skip the bother of the rural work and keep the cash for their dividend.
Our FCC may not be working for us, but they certainly provide a stream of entertainment.
surely wifi mesh nets like the one being developed by Skycoin would solve the problem of internet access for rural America, especially since they designing it for rural Africa?
or would that be promoting a competitor, and the industry sponsored advisory board isn't going to make that sort of suggestion?
Historically American's violently objected to the government instituting taxes to enrich the profits of select corporations How times have changed.
If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be-T J
The US govt (through the FCC?) gave a tax break ($400 million? $600 million? IIRC)) back in the 90â(TM)s to reach populations underserved by broadband. All of the Telcos took the money, and none of them did a thing. I heard it described as the biggest ripoff in history that people donâ(TM)t know about. I have an idea: pull their CEOs in front of a federal judge and demand our money back!!!
I assume that LostMyBeaver was assuming that taxing authorities would use hiring a CDN to prove "nexus" for taxation.
Also the fact that city zoning codes often prohibit productive gardening, as in the case when Oak Park threatened Julie Bass with jail time for growing a victory garden. What Internet connection are farmers supposed to use to upload large files to their crop advisor?
There are alternatives to oil. There are no alternatives to the internet. Yet
... who, like me, (retired IT guy, 73 years old) predicted back in the mid-late 80s that the government would tax the Internet?
It little behooves the best of us to comment on the rest of us.
until the "New" Democrats, aka the Clinton Dems, shift the party to the right.
As for Chicago & Detroit: National problems (like the manufacturing base being outsourced or our disastrous healthcare system) can't be solved at the local level. Who knew?
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AT&T is already being paid, and they're already not actually rolling out broadband to the places they claim. Their coverage maps are outright lies.
Now they sit on a committee trying to tax everyone else to pay for their system.
Yup, sounds exactly like the kind of bullshit I expect. This is a joke.
Basically AT&T is saying that taxpayers should be paying through the nose to prop up their business model. The problem is they've been getting millions of dollars and haven't done what they're already being paid for.
This is the worst form of rent seeking, because they've been paid for years and not actually done the upgrades we've been funding.
Chris Nurse of AT&T is a lying sack of shit, and if the FCC allow this you pretty much know the US has become an oligarchy.
This is utterly insane.
No.
One of the reasons we build cities is the concentration of resources makes it easier to provide infrastructure. Sure, it would be nice to live 5 miles from your nearest neighbor and have fiber to your house. It would be nice to live in New York City and have a couple acres with a stream running through it. But you can't have everything. We already have satellite. Sure it's not awesome, but it should be adequate for most peoples needs. If you want streaming Netflix or low-latency gaming, maybe farming's not for you.
Never let a lack of data get in the way of a good rant.
They aren't even TRYING to hide the fact that this is just more corporate welfare.
Is it in cash, deposited into offshore accounts? Or are his corporate masters going to reward their good little doggy when he's out of the FCC one day, giving him some high-level job for outrageous pay for doing little more than shuffling papers around and getting sucked off by his secretary every day?
Zero chance any of this money ISPs will get from this is going to go to improving anything for consumers, in fact I expect they'll just claim they're 'improving' things, just so they have an excuse to jack up prices even more. Then when Trumps' total mismanagement of international trade causes another massive recession here in the U.S., no one will be able to afford Internet anyway, so I guess The Rich will have all the goddamned bandwidth they want.
As a rural AT&T subscriber, I'd like to add that AT&T has refused upgrading the last mile at my direct expense. It is more like giving the gas tax to private toll road companies without expecting them to build any more roads.
tee el, didnâ(TM)t r
No FCC, they have to compete. 5g will make them obsolete. This is a cash grab.
People welfare: Bad
Corporate welfare. Good
I don't know how most US citizens get their power, but surely its not that expensive and is considered a utility. Why aren't data lines(fiber) treated the same?
3/10 - length of troll is impressive, but the content vacuous. Reads like something a fourth tier university sophomore would pen.
Also, nice try, Vlad!
A fuckton. They just aren't named Facegoog. They're named Boeing, Lockheed, Grumman, Bechtel, BAE, PAE, GE, etc etc. One of the largest shipyards is down there in Pascagula in addition to Stennis Space center. These are NOT gov jobs, they're all contractor outsourced. Now please go ahead and flop around whining "those aren't tech companies". You won't be the only one. If that tax is passed, which I don't care for btw, then that is exactly what the companies will start doing.
You thought you were clever didn't ya?
What about my spelling and grammar?
Was there a specific thought which you considered vacuous?
Ahh... I like the Vlad touch... I am a communistic republican actually.... or something close to what that would be if there was a label. I'm pretty close to the republic in my mind, though I'd like to remove some of the L Ron Hubbary bits.