It’s hip2b2

The US Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has pulled a fast one on network operators and customers once more. This CNet article features the introduction of a tax on Voice-over-IP (VoIP) services. This tax only affects those services that connect to the US PSTN such as Vonage. Services like Skype are unaffected by this new tax. The proceeds of the tax will go to the Universal Telephone Fund. This fund is used to provide subsidies for lower telephone and Internet access rates to certain schools and libraries.

Right now, only telecommunications services, including wireless, pay-phone, traditional telephone and DSL providers, are required to contribute a fixed percentage of their long-distance revenue to the multibillion-dollar fund. It had been unclear whether VoIP providers must also pay. The same FCC order would also raise the share that cell phone providers must contribute to the pool, though it was not immediately clear how many consumers would see hikes or how much they would be.

They can’t use the same reason here in the Philippines. Here we cannot create a fund such as the Universal Telephone Fund because our laws already provide for such missionary telephone service. In place of that, here in the Philippines, we have something called RA 7925 or the Philippine Telecommunications Act which already has missionary clauses that require telecommunications companies to deploy telephone lines in non-profitable or missionary areas to provide Universal telephone access.

However, due to the recent re-classification of VoIP into a Value Added Service, VoIP is not longer covered by RA 7925. Therefore, new laws can be enacted to govern it. Currently, NTC guidelines regulate VoIP services. House Representatives Clavel Asas-Martinez, Abraham Kahlil Mitra, Simeon Kintanar, and Rozzano Rufino Biazon are co-authors of HB 3476, also known as the “Philippine VOIP Act of 2005.” This law aims to put teeth into our current VoIP regulations. I wonder what else they might be able to sneak in?

This entry was posted on Sunday, June 25th, 2006 at 7:31 am and is filed under Musings and Speculations. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.