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The Almighty Buck The Internet Technology

States Fight Internet Tax Ban, Cite VoIP Concern 204

Posted by simoniker from the also-concerned-over-chocolate-cake dept.
PetiePooo writes "From an article at PCWorld: The Multistate Tax Commission is fighting a bill which makes the moratorium on internet taxes permanent. Their complaint is that it could be interpreted to include VoIP telephony such as Packet8 and Vonage, and they would lose that lucrative tax base as people switch from incumbent providers. The House has already approved the bill. When will the politicians figure out that VoIP is a going to end up as a product, not a service? Voice will be just another form of data. Here's another related article."
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States Fight Internet Tax Ban, Cite VoIP Concern More

States Fight Internet Tax Ban, Cite VoIP Concern

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  • the answer (Score:5, Interesting)

    by jonwil ( 467024 ) on Thursday September 25, 2003 @05:17AM (#7053084)
    Change the tax system.
    Change it so that the companies providing the physical links are the ones that pay the tax.
    This will solve all the issues with VOIP
    • More like.. .change it so companies are actually paying taxes, rather than get rebates, loop-holes, etc...

      Most corporations have a ghost office in Delaware or the Bahamas to avoid paying state and/or federal taxes anyway. Check this out [reclaimdemocracy.org].

      If corporations actually paid the taxes that should be levied against them, nobody would care about VoIP... but of course, a few more people would be unemployed.

  • I might be way off here but... (Score:4, Funny)

    by Max Romantschuk ( 132276 ) <max@romantschuk.fi> on Thursday September 25, 2003 @05:17AM (#7053089) Homepage
    When will the politicians figure out that VoIP is a going to end up as a product, not a service?

    When will people in general figure out that data transfer is going to end up as a service, not a product?

    Now then, bring on the bashing...
    • It'd be a great way to end piracy. Just start charging people 10 cents per megabyte (mibibyte?) of download. Then the ISPs could be required to give royalties to media producers.

      I could seriously see the day that we pay per bit, but right now, people would revolt agianst it. It's too hard to tell someone they have to pay for something that used to be "free".
      • I could seriously see the day that we pay per bit, but right now, people would revolt agianst it. It's too hard to tell someone they have to pay for something that used to be "free".

        My guess is that some things are eventually going to be free, like phone calls. You won't be paying for the phone call itself, but you will be paying for the data transfered.

        Just like electricity and water I believe data will end up as a basic service provided in our homes, but for a fee. So a phone call will be free just lik
        • Why don't you like that? I think it'd be great to have people come to realize that bandwidth is a finite resource. Your ISP only has a few OC-whatevers. Mine has a single T-3 (45mbps) feeding about 3000 customers with DSL and another 3000 with dialup. We are told that we are buying a 1.5mbps DSL line, but there just isn't enough pipe to give everyone what they are paying for.

          I think it'd be great that these customers would only grab things off the internet worth paying for. Maybe people would realize
          • >I think it'd be great to have people come to realize that bandwidth is a finite resource

            It'd be especially good if spammers realized that...

          • Uhhmmm...yeah.... (Score:2, Informative)

            by FatSean ( 18753 )
            Grab stats from your router every night and calculate bits sent/received and multiply by the cost per bit.

            I mean...really....

    • Current moderation: 70% Funny 30% Insightful

      The really funny thing is I was serious about this...
    • Parent is modded up as funny but surely this is the whole point?

      VoIP is a product you can obtain, buy the product from the shop or get an open source version. "Voice will be just another form of data" as the VoIP makes use of the data transfer service that is the internet. It just so happens that the end user cost of the internet service is free at the moment. One day, I expect to see the internet provided like a utility service as we get electricity.

  • VOIP may be data... (Score:4, Insightful)

    by mOoZik ( 698544 ) on Thursday September 25, 2003 @05:18AM (#7053090) Homepage
    ...but so is a regular telephone line. sure, it's analog "data," as opposed to digital for VOIP. If we follow that argument, then we shouldn't have to pay for telephone usage, either.

    So the only thing that sets them apart is being analog or digital? I think if it is used for communication, they are going to see it as a threat.

    • Re:VOIP may be data... (Score:2, Informative)

      by nhaines ( 622289 )

      Actually, voice telecomm data is digital--it's digitized at 8kHz, I believe, rather close the to local loop for transmission across the backbone. This allows for virtual circuits and all that.

      That's why it's impossible to connect at more than 53.3kps with an analog modem--any higher speeds would be rendered unintelligible by the compression.

      • 8-bit encoding at 8000 samples per second. The raw PCM signal is 64kbps. Some older systems used 7-bit encoding which produced a 56kbps stream.

        By time your voice enters the big multiplexers, a lot of that is recovered. Any bits covering time you aren't speaking are discarded. The remaining stuff is compressed to about 16kbps for longhaul transmission.

        As for your 56k modem problem. The carrier cannot excede 1/2 of the sample rate. Remember when you has a 300 BAUD modem? Then it became 14.4k with no
        • It's pretty creepy stuff once you start reading about it.

          I'm ready for some creeping out with my coffee this morning, got any links?

          • This explains the difference from baud and bit:
            http://www.totse.com/en/technology/telecomm u nicati ons/bitsbaud.html

            And this explains how phase and level can combine to form a pattern of bits:
            http://www.airlinx.com/details/QAMAirlinx.h tml

            There is also some printed material I have that talks about modem "chirping". Basicly, the only interesting part of a wave is the peak or trough. Someone came up with a technique that allows you to send the part of the wave just before and after the peak or trough. Th
            • interesting read, thas for the links!!
    • ...but so is a regular telephone line. sure, it's analog "data," as opposed to digital for VOIP. If we follow that argument, then we shouldn't have to pay for telephone usage, either.

      Actually in most systems phone lines are only analog for a short distance. Once they get to the closest node they are converted into digital signals transmitted across fiber. In some old systems it's still analog more of the way, but before it gets to any other systems it has to be converted to digital.

      And in the case of

    • Re:VOIP may be data... (Score:5, Insightful)

      by swordboy ( 472941 ) on Thursday September 25, 2003 @08:05AM (#7053579) Journal
      So the only thing that sets them apart is being analog or digital?

      No...

      I pay taxes on my broadband connection already. If I run VoIP through that connection, I shouldn't have to pay taxes for telecom infrastructure that I don't use.

      Telecom tax is not insignificant. This is because PSTN is bulky. If I chose to move to the more efficient packet-switched service, then there is no reason that I should have to support PSTN anymore. It will only keep it alive that much longer.
    • ...but so is a regular telephone line. sure, it's analog "data," as opposed to digital for VOIP. If we follow that argument, then we shouldn't have to pay for telephone usage, either.

      Not only that, but of we follow that quite reasonable logic, then *taxing* VOIP won't be illegal. If they actually read the fine print of the bill, it says that discriminatory taxing of the internet is illegal. Taxing VOIP wouldn't necessarily count, as they already tax phones and they could be rolled up into the same taxin

    • A regular telephone line isn't data. A regular telephone line is a piece of copper which is strung between your house and a telephone pole. A regular telephone line also involves space in routing tables, rights to some use of the cables between the telephone poles, and so forth.

      The tax is due to the infrastructure requirements of the phone line, not due to the data sent over it. If the want to replace the telephone taxes with something relevant to VoIP, they should be taxing the last mile connections.

  • Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)

    by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Thursday September 25, 2003 @05:20AM (#7053095)
    Comment removed based on user account deletion

    • Re:The award for the most naive question goes to (Score:4, Insightful)

      by LostCluster ( 625375 ) on Thursday September 25, 2003 @06:24AM (#7053236)
      When was the last time you carried a box of VoIP out of a store or had it shipped by UPS... seems more like a service to me...

      • Re:The award for the most naive question goes to (Score:4, Insightful)

        by SpinyNorman ( 33776 ) on Thursday September 25, 2003 @07:47AM (#7053509)
        When was the last time you carried a box of VoIP out of a store or had it shipped by UPS... seems more like a service to me...

        Nope.

        Your ISP provides a service (internet connectivity).

        VoIP is nothing more than the VoIP phone that you carry out of the store that enables you to use it for voice.

        What you are saying is equivalent to proposing to tax people who buy fax machines or answering machines to get added value out of their (current) phone service, because "fax is a service" and "automated call answering" is a service.
        • Fax service is taxed. I sent a fax at Staples a couple weeks ago, the sign said $1 but the cashier asked me for $1.05. The reciept said 5 cents was tax which is the standard 5% sales tax we have around here.

          If I had a fax machine at home, I'd have to pay a 5% tax on the cost of sending and receiving faxes there too. No, I wouldn't have to file a form for every fax that comes in or goes out... but I'd have to pay a 5% sales tax when I buy the machine. I'd then have to pay sales tax on the phone service I pl
          • Its not difficult to prove that we are already taxed on everything.

            If you buy your own VoIP equipment, your probably taxed.

            Your probably taxed on your bandwidth costs.

            Your probably taxed on the electricity you supply your equipment with.

            The trick is, not to determine when you are being taxed, instead, count how many times you are being taxed on any given transaction.

            Don't forget to include your personal income tax, and payroll taxes.
      • When you buy your VoIP software product that lets you make the calls... using the data transfer service of the internet

  • When? (Score:2, Informative)

    by the uNF cola ( 657200 )

    When will the politicians figure out that VoIP is a going to end up as a product, not a service?


    When our (the US) government isn't backed by the money of the lobbyers that want to manipulate and again, is backed by the common voice of the people.

  • All down to mismanagement (Score:3, Insightful)

    by hajejan ( 549838 ) <hajejan@@@kamps...org> on Thursday September 25, 2003 @05:30AM (#7053119) Homepage
    VoIP is hardly the problem in this case - I think the main problem is that the states are so incredibly strapped for cash after Bush' gross mismanagement that they are basically are on the path to bankrupcy...

    Hence, they would do anything for some extra cash, rather than realising that "yes, VoIP would be quite cool, and people should pay just as little tax on it as they do on the Internet itself"
    • I'm no Bush fan, but this is just a silly idea.

      What, exactly, did Bush do to create the budget shortfall in just about every state in the Union?

      Answer: Tie his shoes.

      Come on. The President has very, very little to do with the economy. His tax cut didn't do much. His economic "stimulus" package wouldn't have done much. Now, preventing a bunch of morons investing in any company whose CEO could spell "internet", causing a market bubble that would inevitably burst, now that would have made a difference.
      • I'm much to tired to call you an uninformed dipshit.

        Instead I'll just direct you here [usatoday.com], here [cato.org], and here [nytimes.com]. Oh, and a Google search [google.com] of "Bush Administration", deficit, and "federal spending" might enlighten you a tad, also.

        Have a wonderful day.

    • State Government (Score:3, Insightful)

      by Detritus ( 11846 )
      Of course it has nothing to do with state legislatures and governors spending money like a drunken sailor in a whore house when tax receipts were temporarily boosted by a booming economy and soaring stock market. The jerks in my state spent every dime that came in to the state treasury, with no consideration for what was going to happen when the bubble burst. As far as they were concerned, it was "free money", and they wasted no time in thinking up new ways to spend it.
    • This is what drives the states crazy. They'd like to slap a percentage tax on the $21 or so you pay for dial-up or the $50 or so you pay for cable/DSL, but they can't because of this federal law.

  • Simple (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Setti ( 682783 )
    All of their life, Politicians spent time with a profession, most of them are old enough that their interests early on in life were something else but technology. It would seem like since it's their job to supposedly help out the people and businesses by passing fair laws, that they would have more intelligence on how technology works. In this case, all they see it as, is a revenue income for companies that may try to sell that service as a form of package, and will want to collect a bit more coin from it.

  • This always happens when... (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 25, 2003 @05:55AM (#7053182)
    new technology developments allow getting for less something that people was forced to pay much more in the past.
    What would happen (warning: tinfoil-hat example here) if somebody discovered a way to produce cheap energy or a way to transmit data at long distances without using radio waves?
    Would the rulers push the use of these technologies by anyone, or rather immediately find a way to tax whatever material/media/principle thay're based on after being lobbied (bought) by the already estabilished industries?
    • I am reminded of a certain scene in Ayn Rand's book "Anthem" - namely, when the council backed by the candle-makers refused to consider using or producing electric light sources, because it would destroy the already-established industry of candle-making.

  • Note to the States (Score:5, Funny)

    by droleary ( 47999 ) on Thursday September 25, 2003 @06:12AM (#7053211) Homepage
    Not bilking your citizens of their money does not constitute a "cost" or "loss" on your part.
    • Does too. If a service that they currently tax goes out of style and gets replaced by a service they can't tax, overall revenue for taxes go downward without any changes in the law.

      If that happens, some other tax has to go up, some government program has to get cut, or the deficit increases... three ugly options for the polititians.

  • Taxes at all government levels will be affected (Score:5, Informative)

    by dacap ( 177314 ) on Thursday September 25, 2003 @06:14AM (#7053215) Homepage

    Utilities such as telephones are taxed by several levels of government, not just the states. The shift of the telephone service to a permanently untaxable form will have a corresponding multi-level effect. Here in Fairfax County, VA we really get soaked - 22% levied against local service - see Fairfax County Tax Rates [fairfax.va.us] for details.

    Take the bigger picture. This matter is really one of revenue shaping. It takes so many dollars to run the governments (that we hope are acting for the common good). They can get tax revenue from many places. The government sets various tax levels on different goods and services, and by so doing decides which industries and activities it wishes to encourage by giving them a break. This principle is applied at all levels of government. Losing the telephone tax base is not the end of the world - governments will increase the revenue stream elsewhere. Income, personal property, and real estate are perennial favorites here in the US.

    That said, Congress should think carefully before reducing the choices that subordinate government levels have.

    • Re:Taxes at all government levels will be affected (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Wylfing ( 144940 ) <brian&wylfing,net> on Thursday September 25, 2003 @06:55AM (#7053306) Homepage Journal
      Losing the telephone tax base is not the end of the world - governments will increase the revenue stream elsewhere.

      This is a Good Thing(tm). The fewer tax streams, the better. It is vastly preferable to be taxed once (say, on income and capital gains, because it needs to be progressive) and be done with it. Taxing citizens 2-5 times on the same money only creates government incentives that are hard to manage. This is a prime example -- government effectively working against the people because of a too-complex tax picture.

      • It is vastly preferable to be taxed once (say, on income and capital gains, because it needs to be progressive...

        I can accept that you believe those tax rates should be progressive, but is there a reason why they need to be progressive?

      • Why do taxes need to be progressive? Sure it helps a few poor people, but is that really the job of government?

        I've heard two proposes that I agree with. Taxes are due on election day, no withholding, you better save up for them. (I strongly disagree with withholding, it maskes what taxes really are). This isn't a poll tax, it is due even if you don't vote. The other is sales tax only, but exempt sales of houseing, food, and clothing. (After some though I've decided energy is still taxed, it is che

      • Not on capital gains. Capital gains are gains from economic growth. If you want to encourage investment and growth, the capital gains tax should be as low as possible (ideally 0%). The lower the tax, the greater chance the average return on investment will be positive. Just because for the most part only the wealthy pay cap gains taxes does not mean that it is a good tax.

        Income taxes are preferable to cap gains. They should be progressive, but not so much as to punish economic achievement in the top b
        • Not on capital gains. [...] The lower the tax, the greater chance the average return on investment will be positive. Just because for the most part only the wealthy pay cap gains taxes does not mean that it is a good tax.

          It's hard to sell it to the average voter that the rich guy makes tax-free money just clicking on "Buy" and "Sell" buttons, while they have to work more than 13 hours a week (of a 40-hour work week) for the government.

          You are correct that taxing capital gains dampens investments. Howev

    • There's another factor at work (I concede that the tax revenue issue is a powerful one with our elected lawmakers). The telephone companies in the US and everywhere else, AFAIK, are grass roots organizations. Telephone company workers live in every neighborhood and are generally helpful and well liked people (I'm not referring to telco execs, who are mainly evil pond scum). The telcos know this, and when a threat arises to the interests of the telco, the communcations workers are deployed to write letters a

  • on what basis will they collect the tax? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by jlemmerer ( 242376 ) <xcom123@@@yahoo...com> on Thursday September 25, 2003 @06:21AM (#7053230) Homepage
    will they tax the online time or data that is transmitted. and will i get a refund for unwanted data (like spam) or what? and what if you get you data from another country? or another countryman gets data from you? how come that you should pay for something that is wanted by another guy in a country that doesn't tax data? do i also have to pay for the data sent by a malicious worm?
    questions over question...

  • "Today is a historic day" (Score:2, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward
    "Today is a historic day," said Representative Chris Cannon (R-Utah), who chairs the House Judiciary Committee's Subcommittee on Commercial and Administrative Law. "This bill would broaden access to the Internet, expand consumer choice, promote certainty and growth in the IT sector of our economy, and encourage the deployment of broadband services at lower prices."

    How many of your democrats thought you would be agreeing with a republican today?

    • Re:"Today is a historic day" (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Motherfucking Shit ( 636021 ) on Thursday September 25, 2003 @07:08AM (#7053336) Journal
      How many of your democrats thought you would be agreeing with a republican today?
      Me.

      I'm a registered democrat, but only because I lean slightly left of center as opposed to right of center.

      I'm pro-gun (typically a conservative trait), but I'm also pro-choice (that disqualifies me from being a true conservative, I suppose). I don't favor taxes (I must be an evil republican), but I don't favor the death penalty either (wait, I must be a bleeding heart). I support the idea of gay marriage (now the neocons surely won't accept me!) but I don't care much for welfare (so maybe I'm conservative after all...).

      Goddamnit, it's time that people stop seeing things in black and white!

      I'm a democrat but I agree with republicans every day. And republicans agree with me. Not on everything, mind you, but nobody is required to vote a straight ticket. You should vote for the candidate you feel represents your stance on the issues, regardless of which party they're aligned with. If you're a registered republican that doesn't mean that you can't vote for a democrat when he makes sense, and vice versa.

      The fact that I'm pro-choice doesn't make me a left-wing nutcase. The fact that I don't like the idea of subsidizing people who are too lazy to find a job and too careless to bother with birth control and wind up with 6 kids whose lives are paid for with my tax dollars doesn't mean I hang out with Rush Limbaugh. The fact is, I can take a liberal stance on one issue and a conservative stance on another. And regardless of how I'm registered, I can and will vote for any damned person I please.

      I've voted for republicans and I'll do it again, despite the fact that I'm a registered democrat. There are a fair share of politicians from both parties who "get it." (Arguably there aren't enough from either camp who "get it," especially when it comes to technology, but such is life.) There are also a fair share of politicians from both parties who clearly don't "get it." The ones who don't "get it" - for my own personal value of "getting it" - will not be getting my vote. I don't care what their party affiliation is.

      Just because Chris Cannon is a republican doesn't mean that he and I can't see eye to eye on something. Today, we do see eye to eye on the issue of internet commerce. Tomorrow, on some other issue, who knows.

      In America, voting is not only a right, it's a duty. Just remember to vote for the candidate, not for the party.
      • Well said. People who bash a particular political party all day are just too lazy to think for themselves. To say that republicans are evil and the democrats are good(or vice versa) is just ill-informed. Each party does some boneheaded stuff, so all you can do is vote on a person by person basis using the qualifications that are important to you.
      • [ note the small 'l'. ]

        I completely agree with what you're saying, Motherfucking. Personal responsibility, adherence to the Constitution, and a "hands-off" stance on social issues are the tenets of modern American libertarianism.

        You may want to look into the Libertarian Party [lp.org]. While there are a lot of kooky people involved in the LP, there are a good number of them who are a lot more reasistic, and are trying to convince the American public that endless cycles of tax and spend, and government's regulati
        • I think more people are libertarians than you'd realize from the success of the official Libertarian Party.

          In South Carolina, a very libertarian minded Republican congressman, Mark Sanford ran for Governor as a Republican. He defeated the top picks of the Religious Right and the state Republican Machine to win the primaries, then defeated the incumbent Democratic governor in the general election. He was just conservative enough on social issues to get the support of the social conservatives in this state

  • Only when... (Score:3, Funny)

    by DavidpFitz ( 136265 ) on Thursday September 25, 2003 @06:38AM (#7053270) Homepage Journal
    VoIP will be taxed when the telephone companies figure out that politicians are both a service and a product...

  • VoIP in place of phone service (Score:3, Insightful)

    by LostCluster ( 625375 ) on Thursday September 25, 2003 @06:42AM (#7053278)
    Nobody's talking about installing a service-detecting tax machine at ISPs to detect VoIP connections and tax them, so let's lose the "It's just another form of data" claims right here. What they're talking about taxing VoIP that replaces phone service, which is really a phone service that's delivered over VoIP rather than a standard POTS twisted pair.

    It's still phone service. Phone service that's delivered over airwaves, and often is digital these days, is called cellular and that's been taxed since the day it started. Why does VoIP's phone service deserve an exemption?
    • Uh... communication wants to be free? :)

    • Re:VoIP in place of phone service (Score:4, Insightful)

      by RevMike ( 632002 ) <revMike&gmail,com> on Thursday September 25, 2003 @07:13AM (#7053348) Journal
      It's still phone service. Phone service that's delivered over airwaves, and often is digital these days, is called cellular and that's been taxed since the day it started. Why does VoIP's phone service deserve an exemption?

      If you read the articles more closely, you'll see that internet based VoIP is not really their worry.

      MTC officials say the change could easily be interpreted to mean voice or other telecommunications services offered through packet switching technology. With telecommunications companies expected to move much of their voice services from land-line to voice over IP services, the impact to state and local governments could grow significantly, says Loren Chumley, Tennessee's revenue commissioner.

      States don't object to a narrow ban on Internet access taxes, Chumley adds. "The new, multibillion losses for state and local governments would result from language in the House bill as courts interpret it as providing a blanket exemption for non-federal taxes for the telecommunications industry, granting that industry an unprecedented church-like exemption status," Chumley says.

      As more and more telephone companies switch their internal networks to VoIP, they begin to look more like "internet" companies. The states are (wrongly, IMO) concerned that they'll lose the ability to charge sales/income/proprty taxes on telcos the way they could tax any other business.

      What the moratorium does is block internet s[ecific taxes. Fot instance, you can't be charged more taxes for a phone line that is used for internet access than for a regular voice line. You can't be charged a higher sales tax rate because you purchased an item over the internet rather than on the phone. Internet oriented businesses can't be discriminated against.

    • Why does VoIP's phone service deserve an exemption?

      I think you're asking the wrong question. Traditional telcos are regulated and taxed the way that they are due to the fact that they've been granted a monopoly on the last mile to a house. So really the question is this: In a free society, by what justification do you think a non-monopoly should be regulated exactly the same as a state enforced monopoly? I don't think there is any justification and until some is provided, VoIP providers should be f

      • Traditional telcos are regulated and taxed the way that they are due to the fact that they've been granted a monopoly on the last mile to a house.

        Uhm, no. Telcos are in part regulated because of their monopoly status, but celluar companies also have to comply with similar regulations and they aren't a monopoly. See, in many industries there are laws that require that the goods or services they provide must be of a minimum quality in order to be legal. You can't sell tobacco products without a warning labe

        • Uhm, no. Telcos are in part regulated because of their monopoly status, but celluar companies also have to comply with similar regulations and they aren't a monopoly. See, in many industries there are laws that require that the goods or services they provide must be of a minimum quality in order to be legal. You can't sell tobacco products without a warning label. You can't serve uncooked meat at a restaurant. If you're gonna provide phone service. You've gotta give very special treatment to the 911 system

          • Can you name the threat of harm that VoIP poses to society that justifies its regulation?

            Destruction of the E911 system we have spent so much money creating. If you dial 911 on a landline in most places, the 911 center that serves your area gets metadata identifying the address of the phone making the call. If you dial 911 on a cellphone, the cell phone providers are required to create a tower-based estimation of the location where the cell phone is calling from and use that to find the approprate 911 ca

            • Destruction of the E911 system we have spent so much money creating.

              That VoIP doesn't participate fully in the 911 system does not mean that they're destroying it. While you're right that Vonage does offer a 911-type service, it's NOT the same thing. If any VoIP service ever offers the exact same 911 services that traditional telcos provide (including priority call routing to the emergency call center - not to the call center's regular phone) then I would agree with you that they should be required

              • Here's the problem, not being able to partispate in E911 is not an excuse that should get you out of paying for the 911 services... it's a reason why you should be charging your customers a much higher "E911 compliance fee" because you're going to be spending a lot of money getting your system into compliance.

                Vonage is not as reliable as traditional phone service in such emergency communicaton situations, but some people are declaring that Vonage is good enough for them and they are canceling their traditi

                • Here's the problem, not being able to partispate in E911 is not an excuse that should get you out of paying for the 911 services... it's a reason why you should be charging your customers a much higher "E911 compliance fee" because you're going to be spending a lot of money getting your system into compliance.

                  How exactly a company bills its customers is a business decision for that company. It's not up to the government to legislate that decision. Its also a business decision for a company if they d

                  • E911 is like the Monty Python definition of Spam... you're gonna get some with your order whether you like it or not because the Vikings said so.

                    E911 is not a voluntary decison. The cell phone providers wanted out, but for public safety sake the government said no, you can't opt out. Vonage doesn't deserve a free pass either. If you're gonna replace the tellphone, you've gotta bring a replacement for E911 with you.

                    • E911 is not a voluntary decison.

                      Oh sure it is! All I have to do to get rid of that service is to get rid of my phone service altogether. When I no longer have dialtone from the telco, I also no longer have 911 service.

                      So, why is 911 a voluntary decision in one case (no phone service at all), but involuntary in the other (no phone service from a LEC)? If 911 is involuntary, then it should be a tax collected by the state, and the telco should be required to provide dialtone to every house, no matte

    • Why should any phone service be taxed at all?
    • Folks,

      I hate to say this, but VoIP is NOT yet a true replacement for your regular telephone service.

      Today's telephone service for long distance calls is incredibly cheap by anyone's standards; look at the cost of long-distance calls in the first half of the 20th Century versus now on an inflation-adjusted basis and you'll note that calling anyone around the world is very cheap. For example, the 10-10-987 service from Telecom*USA allows you to call from the USA to anyone in Canada or Western Europe for an

  • What other charges will there be? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by LorneReams ( 597769 ) on Thursday September 25, 2003 @07:14AM (#7053354)
    On my phone bill, I pay almost 30% to fees and taxes. On VOIP, will they try to add FCC and associated infrastructure charges when the infrastructure is now irrelevant? I can understand paying a 911 tax (somewhat) but paying a charge that is supposed to cover the cost of the wires seems a bit ridiculous. I can't see them letting go of this money, both in taxes and in fees.

  • An analogy.... (Score:4, Offtopic)

    by wowbagger ( 69688 ) on Thursday September 25, 2003 @07:57AM (#7053549) Homepage Journal
    Believing that giving more money to the government will reduce deficits is like believing that buying an alcoholic another drink will slake his thirst.

    The only real way to solve this problem is to put measureable, non-revokable penalties on government officials who overspend - for example, by saying that Congress shall not be paid, nor accrue retirement benefits, during any year in which the government runs a deficit (and a deficit shall be defined simply as "spending more money than you took in", no more funny accounting tricks).

    We must be able to run a deficit during times of crisis (think World War II), but there needs to be a strong disincentive to prevent perpetual crisis.
    • "We must be able to run a deficit during times of crisis (think World War II),"

      If you accept that, it will just mean that governments will deliberately create crises like WWII (which America could have stayed out of if the US government hadn't pushed the Japanese into attacking them) in order to justify deficits.

      Really, Slashdot posters should learn to think like government burrowcrats before posting their Grand Plans To Save The World.
      • Really, Slashdot posters should learn to read the posts they are responding to before posting their criticisms.

        Had you read my post, you would have seen that I very clearly stated the need to prevent the government from manufacturing crises.
  • Those packets travel over wires that are already being taxed with the exception of some wireless. The wireless connections are running on their own private gear but have to push it to wire at some point where once again taxes are already being paid.
  • I wanted to swap to VoIP years ago but the
    powers that be have made it economically infeasible.

    If I drop Comcast telephone service and keep Comcast Broadband, the Broadband price nearly goes up 75% the cost of the telephone service (due to their "bundling" prices), so I only save a few dollars which is less then I would save if I swapped to VoIP and purchased a telephone number for incoming calls (as a side note, what it odd about this bundling is that they have not and will not put the telephone and broadb
    • My home phone is a VoiP one through packet8. My Internet connection is a 384k/384k (with static IP) through broad band solutions [bbsc.net]. I'm not in a dense area and know for a fact I can get wireless access from at least 1 other provider. It's about $50/month and the setup was steep(~$750). But it's yet to go down from someone smashing their car into the box (like my old ISDN did at least once), or due to "technical difficulties" (like my cable did at my old house).

      All in all the voice quality of packet8 is good

  • "Voice will be just another form of data."

    Voice is already just another form of data.
  • Sounds like we have found someone else who has been making money one way and think they have a right to continue their current business model instead of moving with the times.

  • Longer Term Solution (Score:3, Interesting)

    by serutan ( 259622 ) <snoopdoug AT geekazon DOT com> on Thursday September 25, 2003 @12:35PM (#7055749) Homepage
    We could get rid of all all this tax bickering with a taxation plan that's been discussed for years but never taken seriously. Outlaw all taxes except sales tax. The federal government would impose a national sales tax on consumer purchases only, and would disburse an annual refund equal to the tax rate times whatever they say is the poverty level. ALL OTHER TAXES would be eliminated.

    The flat refund is there to make the sales tax non-regressive, that is, to avoid disproportionally taxing the poor. To meet the federal budget the tax would have to be about 20%. If the federal govt defined poverty level income as $15,000/year, then everybody would get a $3000 refund, which means poor people get all their sales tax back, richer people get back only a fraction. It's a self-graduating tax scale using only 2 numbers, numbers not hidden in a forest of deductions, exemptions and loopholes.

    Cash registers would tell you what your tax is every time you buy something. States would collect sales tax from retailers as they do now, and would turn over the feds' share. The IRS would shrink to a small office with only enough employees to deal with their counterparts in 50 states, rather than with 12 million businesses and over 100 million taxpayers. The maze of business taxes currently built into the price of everything would go away. There would be no income declaration forms, no 4000-page IRS code, no 105,000 IRS employees, no tax accountants, tax consultants, tax lawyers, tax lobbyists, etc. All of that mess would go away. Congress would have only 2 numbers to manipulate, and they would have to do it right out in the open.

    • We could get rid of all all this tax bickering with a taxation plan that's been discussed for years but never taken seriously. Outlaw all taxes except sales tax. The federal government would impose a national sales tax on consumer purchases only, and would disburse an annual refund equal to the tax rate times whatever they say is the poverty level. ALL OTHER TAXES would be eliminated.

      Are you nuts? Do you know what this would do to our economy? There's a myriad of people out there that depend on tax law

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