APPEALS COURT RULING UPHOLDS NET PHONE TAXES
[SOURCE: C-Net|News.com, AUTHOR: Anne Broache]
A three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia
on Friday largely upheld a requirement that Internet phone companies like
Vonage pay fees into a fund to subsidize rural telephone service, but Voice
over Internet Protocol (VoIP) representatives said the ruling isn't all bad. In
what amounts to a split decision, the court said the Federal Communications
Commission acted reasonably and within its authority last June when it extended
to VoIP providers a new set of taxes. Wireline and wireless carriers already
are required to pay 10.9 percent of their long-distance revenues into the
Universal Service Fund. The judges kept in place a key portion of the FCC
rules--challenged by Vonage and industry group VON Coalition--that appears to
discriminate against VoIP providers in favor of their more politically
influential competitors. The rule could require the upstarts to pay a higher
percentage of their revenues than wireless and wireline rivals. Vonage and the
VON Coalition never challenged the FCC's authority to require their companies
to pay into the fund. Instead, they took issue with the methodology for
calculating how much they owed. The court decided Vonage hadn't done enough to
prove its similarity to wireless carriers and declined to make any changes.
Although that move was disappointing, the court's decision to overturn two
other portions of the ruling signal "a growing recognition by the courts that
the FCC has in some cases gone too far in applying regulatory obligations to
Internet communications...that go beyond what they've done for other types of
communications," said Jim Kohlenberger, the VON Coalition's executive director.
http://news.com.com/Appeals+court+ruling+upholds+Net+phone+taxes/2100-7352_3-6188223.html?tag=html.alert.hed
* Court Approves Universal-Service-Fund Mandates on Cable VoIP
http://www.multichannel.com/article/CA6448359.html?rssid=196
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