Judge: Nebraska commission cannot collect fees on Internet calls

The Nebraska Public Service Commission has until April 2 to decide whether it will appeal a federal court order barring it from collecting a state fee from Internet phone service provider Vonage Holdings Corp. The court order is the latest victory for Vonage in its fight to keep its customers from having to pay into state universal service funds. Vonage offers a service called Voice over Internet Protocol -- or VoIP -- which converts the sound of a voice into packets of data, sends them across the Internet, and reassembles them into sound on the other end of a call. In a U.S. District Court lawsuit filed in Lincoln, Vonage argued that the Nebraska Public Service Commission and its officials should not be allowed to force Vonage to pay into the state's Universal Service Fund because the company offers an information service rather than a telecommunications service.
http://www.siouxcityjournal.com/articles/2008/03/21/news/nebraska/357b23...