Universal Service news
Reps. Boucher and Terry have introduced a bill [pdf] that would support universal service (roughly, telephone service in rural areas) by imposing a tax on any entity providing voice communications over any platform.
So the bill defines “communications service providers” to include any entity that “uses telephone numbers or Internet protocol addresses, or their functional equivalents or successors, to offer a service or a capability (i) that provides or enables real-time voice communications; and (ii) in which the voice component is the primary function.”
This must mean that any provider of free voice services is covered too, whether or not they connect to the traditional telephone network. This must cover Skype. The idea is that the FCC is supposed to begin a rulemaking that would lead to charging “communications service providers” for universal service.
Section 4 (starting on p. 17 of the draft) says that another rulemaking is supposed to establish mandatory rules for tracking all services – presumably so that USF can be assessed. This section is truly startling. It appears, among other things, to outlaw encrypted online traffic. Take a look at this:
Communications service providers [this includes any application that uses IP addresses to provide real-time voice communications] shall ensure that all traffic that originates on their networks contains sufficient information to allow for traffic identification by other communications service providers that transport, transit, or terminate such traffic, including information on the identity of the originating provider, the calling and called parties, and the jurisdiction in which the traffic originates. . . .
This is outrageous. This means that any voice application has to label its packets so that everyone else handling their packets can tell exactly what's going on. Who's talking. Where they are. This is unbelievable.
Such rules shall include mandatory requirements for identification of all traffic by the originating provider and shall require that such traffic identification information is transferred to transporting, transiting, and terminating providers unchanged and unaltered. The rules shall also establish procedures for carriers to contest insufficiently labeled traffic in a prompt manner and shall establish appropriate enforcement and penalty provisions for carriers that insufficiently label traffic. The processes to adjudicate insufficiently labeled traffic shall require the relevant providers to demonstrate their compliance with the Commission’s traffic labeling standards.
Don't be confused by the sloppy label “carriers” in this section. Communications service providers, again, includes anyone providing a voice service online, whether for a fee or not, and whether or not they've been a traditional telephone company.
Follow the money. The USF “social policy” is the most important of the lot, because congressional constituents care about it. This is only a bill, but it's even worse than what we've seen coming out of the Commission on E911 and CALEA. We're taking a major step to tax the internet — a huge step beyond assessing USF fees for use of telephone numbers, which was the standard policy suggestion not long ago.
If this bill passes, the FCC will be asked to make rules standardizing the identification of all online traffic. You've never seen a tech mandate like this one.
Okay, the gloves are off. The section-by-section analysis says only that the bill “[R]equires telecommunications carriers to identify all traffic which originates on their networks so carriers that terminate traffic can seek appropriate intercarrier compensation,” but this bill is about much more than that. Because the bill's definition of “communication service providers” is so broad — because it includes Skype and maybe even Xbox — the bill's twin goals are to outlaw unidentified packets and tax the internet.
Read the bill — let me know if I've misunderstood it.
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The press release states that comments on this
discussion draft of the Universal Service Reform Act of 2005 are requested by December 23rd, 2005.
Thanks. James Enck has commented on this at EuroTelcoBlog and I've spread a little of The Word at The i-Kew.
Cheers,
Guy
You said: “universal service (roughly, telephone service in rural areas)”. There's one major fallacy about that definition: If you've already got service (and you live in a rural area) the USF subsidizes it. If you don't have service, there's no easy way to get it. Just ask the folks in the Skyko 2 community in Washington State.