Voice Features

Sacramento starts VoIP tax

Pete Wylie — Fri, 12 Dec 2008 12:17:18 -0500

Sacramento, Calif., initiated a tax on VoIP communications today, as "Measure O," the "Utitlity User Tax Reduction and Fariness Measure" takes effect. The measure drops the overall tax rate on communication services from 7.5 to 7 percent, but the tax now includes VoIP calls, text messages and voice features like call waiting and caller ID as taxable items.

Internet access won't be taxed, but mobile data plans will. Telecommunications companies have until March 1 to begin assessing the taxes on customers' bills.

Measure O passed on November 4, with the stated aim of "ensuring that communications users are treated uniformly without regard to the technology used." Sacramento will receive an estimated $12 million annually from the increased tax revenue.

A VoIP customer in Sacramento averaging $20 per month in charges will spend an additional $16 per year for phone service, which isn't a tremendous increase. But with economic times tight, regulations like Measure O eat away at vanilla VoIP's value proposition. If similar measures pass in other cities, VoIP providers wouldn't lose any direct revenue since the actual service price stays constant. But VoIP taxes might slow adoption and the is always the annoying accounting overhead when different cities set different rates and demanded compliance.

For more:
- the Sacramento Bee has a preview article and an article on the start of the tax

Related articles
Los Angeles imposed a similar tax earlier this year
Texas Think Tank Fights Missouri VoIP Taxes

BroadSoft and JoeDeveloper.NET mashup Facebook

Thu, 24 Apr 2008 06:59:57 -0400

BroadSoft and JoeDeveloper.NET have launched the first Facebook mashup to include carrier-grade VoIP features. J.NET's Click2Message Facebook application talks to Broadsoft's BroadWorks VoIP application platform, so Facebook users can enable their friends and colleagues to call them through their Facebook profiles with a single click.

The Click2Message application enables click-to-dial using any device and Facebook users can add the application to their profile pages, allowing their network of friends and business connections to call them without revealing their own phone numbers to the caller. (If they are your friends, why would you need to hide your number? Hmm.) The basic Click2Message application is now available free of change to any U.S.-based Facebook user; sign-up information for the free beta is available at http://marketplace.broadsoft.com. A for-pay version with advanced bells and whistles such as low-cost outbound calling, call forwarding, do not disturb, and voicemail-to-text transcription, will be released shortly

Click2Message is the latest high-visibility application announced out of BroadSoft's Xtended Developers Program, following announcements combining BroadWorks functionality with Salesforce.com, ACT! by Sage, simulScribe, and Polycom. Developers get access to APIs to integrated advanced voice features with their applications.

For more:
- BroadSoft Facebook Mashup release

Related articles:
BroadSoft powering XO Hosting Mobile UC
TMC piece on Broadsoft ACT! Mashup

BroadSoft and JoeDeveloper.NET Mashup Facebook

Doug Mohney — Tue, 22 Apr 2008 11:26:25 -0400

BroadSoft and JoeDeveloper.NET have launched the first Facebook mashup to include carrier-grade VoIP features. JoeDeveloper.NET's Click2Message Facebook application talks to Broadsoft's BroadWorks VoIP application platform, so Facebook users can enable their friends and colleagues to call them through their Facebook profiles with a single click.

The Click2Message application enables click-to-dial using any device and Facebook users can add the application to their profile pages, allowing their network of friends and business connections to call them without revealing their own phone numbers to the caller. (If they are your friends, why would you need to hide your number? Hmm.) The basic Click2Message application is now available free of change to any U.S. based Facebook user; signup information for the free beta is available at http://marketplace.broadsoft.com. A for-pay version with advanced bells and whistles such as low-cost outbound calling, call forwarding, do not disturb, and voicemail-to-text transcription, will be released shortly

For more:
- BroadSoft Facebook Mashup release

Related articles:
BroadSoft powering XO Hosting Mobile UC
TMC piece on Broadsoft ACT! Mashup