Vonage Canada Complains About "VoIP Tax"

Vonage Canada, the Internet phone service company, has requested that the Canadian Radio-Television & Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) investigate Shaw Communications’ practices related to Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) services. Shaw recommends to its high-speed Internet customers that they pay an additional $10 charge for an “enhancement service” if they use VoIP phone service providers such as Vonage. Vonage claims that this additional charge amounts to a “tax” on VoIP, and is an unfair attempt to drive up the price of competing VoIP services to protect Shaw’s own high priced service. Vonage Canada argues that the monopoly telephone and cable Internet service providers should not be able to restrict what services, applications or content Canadians can access. They liken such restrictions to a power company dictating the brand of appliance you plug into your wall. The questions they have asked the CRTC to investigate are:

What does Shaw’s enhancement service consist of?
What evidence is there to show that the enhancement service actually improves a customer’s use of a non-Shaw phone service?
How does Shaw justify a recurring charge, when the service appears to consist of a one-time configuration of the Shaw-approved cable modem?
What is the take-up rate of the enhancement service, and what is the likely effect on competition and local VoIP services?

For additional information, visit:

http://www.newswire.ca/en/releases/archive/March2006/07/c4352.html?view=point

Volume IV

Vonage Canada Complains About "VoIP Tax"