Should VOIP be state regulated?

[Ioman]

As many of you know the FCC just ruled that VOIP phone services should not be state regulated. California is appealing this decision. Is this is a good or bad thing and why?

[llbbl]

regulated how?

[flashfire]

No, VOIP should not be regulated. It is a data service. It should be realized though that there is a great deal of state and local revenues that will be lost if VOIP replaces a great deal of regular phone service. This means states will either tax VOIP or find new ways to replace that lost revenue. However, the moment they regulate (tax) VOIP, then many small companies will cease to be able to compete becuase they have to spend resources meet regulations. Innovation would also be stagnate. (How much has phone service changed in 100 years). Also the land based phone service has very stringent reliability requirements. Making those same reliability requirements on the currently small VOIP providers could also put them out.

[Ioman]

Originally Posted by TecknoGeek

regulated how?

Read the article.

[Ioman]

Great arguement Flashfire, I tend to agree with you.

Playing devils advocate though....


Have you read the user reviews on the Vonage VOIP service? They are obviously mistreating their customers. Would state regulation help customers in this instance?

On the other hand, Voice Pulse, a much smaller company has great customer service and offer a better product. State or government regulation might have put them out of business if the barrier to enter the market place was too tough.

The problem is that Vonage advertises everywhere so people sign up with them. Voice Pulse needs to get the word out a little better IMO.

[ECA]

WELL,
Its funny, that they tax everything for a reason..
Hiway taxes, for large trucking, to repair hiways.

But WHY in the world do they tax Phones, and power, and cable TV..
They all us ethe same POLE..
I'd LOVe to loose about $7 off my phone bill, and $3 off my power, and $5 off cable taxes...
the hard part would be SHOWING that a home or company is USING VOIP, and not just highspeed access..Or cable TV...

In the end, this is ONLy another CABLE service, and we are paying taxes to it.

[IsearchCRAP]

I dont know man they find any way to skrew us into paying more money, but then again the Us gov't needs it guess im mean their only 7 trilloin dollars in debt (yes this is true) lets drink to that

[llbbl]

This is not about regulation, its about taxes and money.

If the states are already getting tax money on the cable modem bill they shouldn't be allowed to tax us twice for a service that uses the device.

[ECA]

true..
Its like paying taxes on your phone, and they paying for call waiting

[llbbl]

on the other hand ... say you have long distance service with a different company than your local telephone service ... you pay taxes both of those services right.

Only difference here is that Vonage is based out of NJ and doesn't have any local offices in any other state, so you shouldn't be forced to pay state taxes on an out of state service ...