Thank you very much for the pointers. You are right. It's a different business model. What is it they say? "Let the market work". VoIP, being a newer technology was not taxed, and even FCC (in US) worked really hard to evade 50 state regulations to let VoIP grow to hold its promise. Now, when VoIP has already taken its flight, small surcharges like USF won't hurt. That's perfectly fine when calls mostly generate from USA.
But, we can't compare Country "A" with USA. Being a poor country, "A" needs to earn some revenue what the service providers and illegal stake holders did so far. The model of revenue sharing might help this poor country to encash some of fortune for sometime. Though the (VoIP, especially call termination) was branded illegal, but most phone companies were doing it. We can't blame them, market needed it badly and flaws in regulatory policies provided these technologically superior foreign phone companies a huge advantage, which are not even listed in local stock exchange, let alone offering IPOs. One of their parent companies recently deenlisted themselves from NASDAQ. Don't get me wrong, I don't have anything against them, but the profits to be shared. When you enjoyed huge tax holidays and allocation of spectrum for almost free; you are entitled to contribute a little extra for the social development of that population.
I agree to your point. So far it was illegal, now all of a sudden you can't expect things to be free and open, when the policy makers are really skeptical about it. The technology was abused so far, you have to give it a time. Now, you may not brand it as a monopoly, because the service providers will have the liberty to choose their wholesale VoIP carriers, ITSP, pricings i.e., only thing, they have to share 5% of their earning from call termination. DPI is not good, I hate that too; but how would you know about their earnings? Gentlemen agreement?
As you said, yes, I did also propose some percentage of tax on VoIP calls (i.e., 5-6%). Charging more will obviously end up users to pay more. That's should be avoided. On the other hand, when you don't have much technology to asses total call generation for VAT and QoS for the services they offer, you can't regulate them. Regulation needs more knowledge, and that costs money. I have seen plenty of documentations by ITU, World Bank, USAID on regulatory framework and case studies, how to tailor those down to country "A"s model?
I agree. The technology should be allowed to evolve to gain its momentum. All I wanted a short term plan for this transitory period. Plans are subject to review every or every other year. The PSTNs are dying and KPN, BT, Deutsche Telecom are moving to VoIP enabled NGN solutions. VoIP won't be taxed forever!
Country "A" may not be able to afford your telecom policy guidelines, but I assume you will be welcomed open arm to setup a regulatory framework for countries like "A". Ramifications of knowledge sharing are even greater for developing countries. And Newsweek once said, Nations that learn faster will prosper. But it will take something else -- wisdom -- to endure.
Thanks once again.
Raqueeb Hassan Bangladesh