A group known as the Keep USF Fair Coalition, which appears to be nothing more than a conglomerate of phone company
lobbyists, wants the FCC to mandate the Universal Service Fund tax be levied on VoIP services. This would amount
to an increase in your monthly VoIP bill and make it so that your VoIP carrier has to remit the same Universal Service
taxes that its competing traditional Bell carrier must remit.
The Keep USF Fair Coalition uses race politics and the mythical "cheap telephone service for the disadvantaged"
idealogy in order to support subtle barriers to entry for new competitors in the phone industry (like Vonage and
Packet8), all while under the guise of fairness and equity. There's even a pathetic, nonsensical quote from the NAACP
featured on their web site, and one of their pages, which dishonestly portends an opposition to tax increases, has a
picture of a disabled person in a wheelchair.
Last time I checked, blacks and the disabled have the same access to VoIP services as any other broadband consumers.
That said, why does this so-called coalition contend that because you're black or disadvantaged, somehow you are going
to suffer more from Universal Service taxes than if you're non-black or fully-mobile? For that matter, why is
this organization lumping blacks and the disabled into the same consituency?
If the Keep USF Fair Coalition wants the disadvantaged to have easier access to Voice over IP phone services, why
don't they take step to DECREASE the consumer cost burden of such services? If they really had the interests of
consumers at heart, they would abandon their position of applying the USF tax to VoIP, because doing so would actually
make it MORE COSTLY for everybody.
The reason for all of this silliness appears to be very simple. The Keep USF Fair Coalition, who naturally doesn't
list any Bell carriers as members, is comprised of lobbying groups tied to race politics, disability politics, and farm
subsidy politics. But the real profiteer of their efforts, at least in this case, is the encumbant phone
companies, who view a possible USF extension to VoIP services as a way of leveling the playing field with their scrappy
young competitors.
"Advocacy" group wants to tax your VoIP service
Reader Comments
(Page 1)2. While some of your comments left me speechless in terms of why blacks and farm subsities are relevant positions against VOiP, I absolutely understand the politics of MONEY and taxes that will be wanted to be levied against this new social freedom for which we now have access. I am a "newbie" to telecommunications expertise, but, know a good thing when I see it. Hence, have joined what I consider a revolution. Am also, "revolting" in many political arenas, but that is irrelevant on this site. I live in a very isolated area of the country (USA) and have only one carrier available who has just gouged all of us. I was inscensed and looked for a better, less expensive and most importantly, fewer, if not any, taxes on our rights to communicate. Obviously, I am a very firm First Amendment advocate and feel that the taxes, the price gouging in an area that does not have any competition is unjust (also, do not like the sky-high prices, from a personally financial perspective.) Please explain what is meant by the "black perspective" , etc I am white and living on a fixed retirement income, so do not see the difference. Plese fill me in. In my "working life", I was an advocate for Human Rights. I was not, however, knowledgeable about the state of public/private communication rights or, at the time was this a huge issue (except for the " Bell's monopoly". I am not sure that our communication system, in terms of costs, taxes, privacy and choices is really that better now. I love the concept of VOiP, but, unless we lobby hard and fast, can see that this method of communication, will again be taxed "to death" and we will be in the same space as before, unless we lobby, go into tirades, if necessary, and, of course protect our inter-net priveleges. To all of you who are far ahead of me in your thinking and in your possible/probable methods of overcoming these potentials, please forgive my ignorance and naivete.
I do have one personl question to ask: If using the VOiP communication method, can others listen in on one's conversations? This has happened to me on many occassions with my prior telephone connections. I do not like that!
Posted at 4:36AM on Dec 19th 2005 by Maryanne Kern
3. iCallGlobe provides excellent VoIP services with high quality satisfaction for business corporate and contact centers at cheap rates.
Posted at 6:00AM on Dec 30th 2005 by Daniel Muela
1. Thought you might like to see a couple other comments from the web about this fake "consumer" group:
http://www.broadbandreports.com/shownews/62890
http://www.interesting-people.org/archives/interesting-people/200504/msg00235.html
I just wonder if our legislators are really so dumb that they don't know who is behind such groups. What's really sad is that some media outlets will probably use this outfit's ridiculous press release as the basis of a story, such is the state of "journalism" these days - no investigation to speak of, just rewrite corporate press releases and call it "news" (I have another word for it - "propaganda").
Posted at 4:36AM on Dec 19th 2005 by Jack