More VoIP good news

Submitted by acohill on Fri, 11/12/2004 - 11:50

The FCC released another ruling on VoIP. The Federal Communications Commission has barred states from imposing telecom regulations on Voice over IP telephony providers.

This is additional good news for businesses and consumers who are saving money by using VoIP services (estimated to be well over 4 million customers). State and local taxes on telephone services with no local infrastructure or presence is simply taxation without representation in another form, and revenue-hungry governments ought to keep their hands off VoIP. Taxing things like that just makes the state or locality less competitive globally and retards economic development.

Unfortunately, the FCC has still not ruled on whether VoIP is an information service or a telephone service. If it is considered a telephone service, VoIP would be subject to the no longer relevant telephone regulation of the last century. But so far, the FCC rulings on VoIP have all been in the right direction.