Appeals court ruling upholds Net phone taxes

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/2100-73...

* Court Approves Universal-Service-Fund Mandates on Cable VoIP
http://www.multichannel.com/article/CA6448359.html?rssid=196