New US Court Ruling On VoIP Internet Phone Companies

The US court ruled that US VoIP companies like Vonage or SunRocket need to pay Universal Service Fund (USF) fees. It will apply only to those Internet Phone companies that hook into the PSTN (Public Service Telephone Network - meaning the regular phones).

Currently regular phone company fees of that sort are around 12 percent of their long distance income. But since VoIP traffic is not categorized that way the FCC ruled it to be around 65 percent for VoIP companies. You can also compare that to some 37 percent of revenue that cellphone providers pay there.

In the words of FCC chairman Kevin Martin: "I am pleased that the court has affirmed the commission's action, which ensures that USF contribution obligations are administered in a competitively and technologically neutral manner on all phone providers, including interconnected Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) providers"

So what does it mean to an average VoIP consumer? Well, it's estimated to add around $1.30 to monthly subscription internet telephony fees. That sounds like reasonable, not making a huge difference in comparing VoIP to PSTN costs of operation.