>>>Officials at BellSouth Corp. said it will immediately begin charging access fees to companies that use its network and advertise Internet phone service.<<<
Your point is well taken. Touche!
It'll be interesting to see how they accomplish the accounting part on that one, given the complexities and hostilities they will face if they actually attempt to follow through with this. The machinery is not set up for it. The software hooks and reporting links, I mean. I recently addressed something similar to this kind of dilemma in the VoIP thread. From Reply #426:
----
For example, if an ITSP is not using SS7, then how does
the LEC, and through extension, the FCC, know whether
the call is long distance or not? After all, Ingress/Egress
charges apply only to LD. Right? Who's to say that the
calls aren't local by the neophytes not using SS7?
SS7, which will be used by the more sophisticated ITSPs,
early on, will provide pointers to remote end offices, and
look-ahead call setup procedures, and calling- and
called-party directory number information which are
_auditable_ . Indeed, necessary for billing purposes.
Less sophisticated nets which don't use SS7 and rely
instead on TCP/IP routing techniques to get to a limited set
of end points where there are similar gateways, are far
more limited in their reach potential. At the same time,
however, they don't leave a magnetic trail. Some of these
will not need to use traditional billing practices if
they offer prepaid and flat rate plans per minute,
regardless of where the calls are placed to, hence,
there is no audit trail, even on paper.
I suppose that there will be some form of compliance in
accounting ruling on this, but as it stands now, I haven't
even heard the question raised.
All of which raises the question of accountability in
reporting. Very Interesting, wouldn't you say?
-----
Of course, there are other platforms, some CTI, which will do the trick just as well. Only problem is... try getting a BOC to use them! Maybe someday. |
