If you live in Nebraska

Posts: 810 · Vonage Forum Evangelist Joined: Jun 08, 2007 Posts: 810

OMAHA, Neb. - 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.

see http://www.forbes.com/feeds/ap/2008/03/20/ap4800229.html

Posts: 429 · Posted: Fri Mar 21, 2008 7:29 pm Post subject:

Great! I don't physically live there now but that is where my billing address is. I'm sure I speak for most when I say that I'm tired of all these extra charges on my vonage bill that have been going up for the last couple of years. Razz

Posts: 135 · Posted: Mon Mar 24, 2008 3:23 pm Post subject:

And the cour ruled on the issue.

Court reminds states that VoIP is exempt from service fees

I would think this could apply to all states... not just Nebraska.

Posts: 810 · Vonage Forum Evangelist Joined: Jun 08, 2007 Posts: 810

Not sure if any other States have tried levying State (not federal) universal service fees on VOIP.

Posts: 135 · Posted: Mon Mar 24, 2008 4:39 pm Post subject:

I think there are several states with a that try to impose a State USF. The list that I saw included CA, KS, NE, TX, UT and WY. We do not have one here in VA but they did recently impose a "State Communications Service Tax" that covers all telecom services. I wonder if they did that to avoid the VOIP exemption based on it being a "data service".

Posts: 2257 · Posted: Mon Mar 24, 2008 7:47 pm Post subject:

Let's see... Here in Maine my $14.99 limited plan costs $19.65, which includes:

Residential Basic 500 Minutes Plan $14.99
Regulatory Recovery Fee $0.99
Emergency 911 Cost Recovery $0.99
Federal Universal Service Fee $1.27
State Service Provider Tax $0.91
State 911 Fee $0.50
Total Amount $19.65

So, assuming that the $0.99 Regulatory fee, the $0.99 911 Cost Recovery fee *, and the Federal Universal Service Fee are on all Vonage lines, then Maine is taking $1.41, $0.50 of which is for a service that the state is ALSO not offering me (911).

But, compared to the $25-30 "basic limited residential" Verizon line around here that comes to $35-40 with zero long distance included, no caller ID or call waiting, no voice mail of any kind much less with email notifications, and Vonage is still the deal of a lifetime.

* (which would make sense to me if Vonage offered me E911, but they dropped it last year after having it for a short time)

Posts: 810 · Vonage Forum Evangelist Joined: Jun 08, 2007 Posts: 810

mharvey wrote:

I think there are several states with a that try to impose a State USF. The list that I saw included CA, KS, NE, TX, UT and WY. We do not have one here in VA but they did recently impose a "State Communications Service Tax" that covers all telecom services. I wonder if they did that to avoid the VOIP exemption based on it being a "data service".

Good Info . . . do they all charge VOIP services?