Billing Question ??

[VOIPoTim]

I agree it's a lot, but I'm not a politician so I can't do much about it unfortunately.

Believe it or not, we're actually losing a pretty substantial amount of money on the "flat rate" $3 fee. That's why pretty much all the mainstream VoIP providers now charge way more than $3.

There's lots of quasi-government "funds" we have to pay into....USF Fund, LNP Fund, NANPA fund, etc. The USF alone is a huge hit since we have to pay 15.5% of the gross interstate revenue into it alone.

Another big one is E911. In addition to various taxes for it, we have to pay an E911 service provider a monthly recurring cost for each active number to provide the E911 service.

Many of these costs keep going up (such as the USF) and in most cases we are losing money depending on the customer location. Due to the recession, all kinds of government agencies are finding ways to get more $ and more and more fees keep cropping up.

We've had the $3 "flat fee" for a few years now, but it's something we're going to be forced to in the near future, so $3 is probably a bargain compared to what it will be in the future if the government continues on the path its on to make sure that all the landline taxes/fees end up applying to VoIP as well.

If we do end up changing it, anyone that's paid up would not be affected. We wouldn't retroactively bill it on prepaids and the new rate would only apply to future invoices.

Just as an example, one little county in WV wants $3.34 a month as a "911 tax" for all customers that live there. This does not pay for the 911 service the provider offers, it's just a tax to pay for the expenses of the local 911 center. So providers end up paying that plus the cost of a 911 service, various other federal, state, county, and local taxes, 15.5% of gross interstate revenue into USF, etc.

http://www.dslreports.com/shownews/W...11-Fees-112279

Right now most county and local taxes don't apply to VoIP and only apply to traditional phone service. If some of the cities and counties have their way with it and include VoIP as this WV county is trying to do, many VoIP providers will soon be collecting more in taxes than they actually charge for service.