3 ms·
> In today’s decision, we determine in principle that the Commission should assess Public Purpose Program surcharges and user fees on all text messaging service
by cronix 8y ago
> In today’s decision, we determine in principle that the Commission should assess Public Purpose Program surcharges and user fees on all text messaging services revenue. Text messaging services consists of both Short Message Service(SMS) and Multimedia Messaging Service (MMS). SMS allows a cellular customer to send and receive messages of up to 160 characters to and from another cellular service customer[1].
> MMS is a newer service a customer can use to send text, photos and other information along with the message[1].
So this (dumb) proposed law would only cover true SMS/MMS texts, and not Signal/WhatsApp/Snapchat/Viber/WeChat/Messenger/Telegram/Hangouts/KiK/Skype/or any new apps coming out daily? The things most people are using now over regular text?
[1] http://docs.cpuc.ca.gov/PublishedDocs/Efile/G000/M238/K227/238227359.PDF http://docs.cpuc.ca.gov/PublishedDocs/Efile/G000/M238/K227/2...
- toast0 8y agoDisclaimer: I work for one of the apps you mentioned. This is my own opinion and not that of my company. CPUC has the ability to regulate telecoms, but all of those apps are services that run over the internet, which is outside the pervue of the CPUC afaik. Most of them aren't making revenue on messaging either, so a revenue based tax doesn't work either.
- michaelmrose 8y agoProbably because it would be challenging to tax services that are or could be located out of state or even out of country but easy to tax telecom with physical operations in state. Also people pay nontrivial sums for telecommunication services. Easily $1200 -> $3000 per household. Taking a small portion of that money is still a lot of money. Facebook by contrast makes a lot less per user.