Vonage and other traditional VoIP providers don’t have to pay int...
Vonage and other traditional VoIP providers don’t have to pay into the Nebraska Universal Service Fund, the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said Friday. The St. Louis-based court was upholding a district court decision that Nebraska officials had…
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appealed. As the lower court had, the appeals court accepted Vonage’s claim to be an information service rather than a telecom service. The appeals court decision bodes ill for state universal service funds beset by shrinking bases, Medley Global Partners wrote Friday in a note. “This decision is a major victory for the entire VoIP industry who have long fought the states and the FCC on this issue,” Medley said. Another casualty is the FCC, whose efforts at reforming the federal USF and access schemes Medley said will be tangled by the appeals court decision. That ruling “throws a monkey wrench into the FCC’s ongoing process on what kind of access charge regime should apply to VoIP traffic,” Medley said. The state had been joined in its appeal by the National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners and the FCC, filing as friends of the court. Vonage was joined in amicus briefs by the Computer & Communications Industry Association, TIA, Information Technology Industry Council, Information Technology Association of America, Fiber-To-The-Home Council, Verizon and the Voice on the Net Coalition.