Sunday, February 22, 2004

USF - Tax on phone numbers

Nice idea, but what about domain names and URIs? If IP Communications is the Universal Service
of the future, a tax should be fair. Maybe one should consider a tax for BB access.

In ENUM, a phone number is a domain name in e164.arpa. On the other hand, is the USF state, federal or
global? Who get a tax for .com?

Both phone numbers and domain names are global resources, e.g. E.164 phone nummers are assigned by
the ITU-T to the country, which in turn assign them to operators, which in turn assign them to users.
An end-user never owns a phone number, he has only the right to use. Same for domain names.

If there are taxes on phone numbers and domain names, maybe the final "owners" ITU-T and ICANN
may get some ideas ;-)

FCC commissioners advocate Universal Service changes: "FCC commissioners advocate Universal Service changes

By Donny Jackson

TelephonyOnline.com, Feb 11 2004

Significant revisions are needed in the funding of Universal Service in the near term to compensate for changes in calling technologies and usage patterns, FCC commissioners said yesterday during an investor conference sponsored by The Precursor Group.
'The Universal Service funding mechanism�needs to be updated and revisited,' said Commissioner Kathleen Abernathy, who also heads the Federal-State Joint Board on Universal Service that is expected to recommend a solution to the FCC by the end of the month. " ....

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