FCC Asked to Authorize State USF Charges on Intrastate VoIP
Kansas and Nebraska regulators asked the FCC to allow states to charge VoIP providers universal service fund fees on intrastate traffic. Their petition, filed Thursday, is the latest development in an issue that came to a head when Nebraska tried to charge VoIP provider Vonage fees to help support the state’s Universal Service Fund (CD June 8 p7). The Kansas and Nebraska utility commissions asked the FCC to “declare that state USF assessment is not preempted and has not been preempted, so long as the state does not assess interstate revenue.”
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The petition follows suggestions by the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in St. Louis. The court recently turned aside the Nebraska commission’s appeal of a lower court decision banning the assessments, in a lawsuit brought by Vonage. But the 8th Circuit also said that if asked the FCC could issue a declaratory ruling codifying principles the commission expressed in an amicus brief supporting Nebraska’s appeal.
The state commissions filed their petition “in the belief that the FCC is the expert agency that should make a determination as to the validity of states assessing nomadic VoIP providers to support their universal service funds,” said an attorney for the commissions.