Cell phone taxes emerged yet again in Congress this week when Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-Calif.) and Rep. Trent Franks (R-Ariz.) introduced the Cell Phone Tax Fairness Act of 2009 (HR 1521).
The bill, which has 20 additional cosponsors, would ban state or local jurisdictions from imposing "a new discriminatory tax on or with respect to mobile services, mobile service providers, or mobile service property, during the five-year period beginning on the date of enactment of this Act."
The legislation would not affect current state and local taxes, nor would it affect federal taxes, like the FCC Universal Charge. The Federal Excise Tax from the Spanish-American War was disconnected in 2006.
In statement, Lofgren said she hopes that the bill would further innovation and access in the wireless world. "The Cell Tax Fairness Act does not take away any existing revenue for state or local governments, it simply calls for a period of tax stabilization," she said. "This legislation will ensure that consumers make choices about communications technology based on the merits of that technology, rather than on the rate of taxation."
The wireless industry's lobbying arm, the Cellular Telecommunications Industry Association (CTIA), is supporting the bill. In its own statement, the association said it was glad to see "Congress moving ahead in the right direction to ease the tax burden on wireless customers." According to the CTIA, U.S. wireless subscribers paid $21 billion in federal, state, and local wireless taxes and fees during 2008.
The Tax Fairness Act is has been referred to the House Judiciary Committee. Wireless taxes were the subject of four similar bills introduced in the last Congress, one of which Lofgren drafted. None of the bills, however, emerged from committee for a full floor vote.
Kent and Bonnie are busy in Barcelona, Spain, so I roped in Tom Merritt from Buzz Out Loud and The Real Deal to talk phones. We spend most of the show going over the big news from GSMA Mobile World Congress, but we also dip our toes in some local news and reviews as well.
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GSMA Mobile World Congress is just a few days away and already we've received a few sneak peeks at what will be at the show. We discuss those, as well as iPhone rumors, new phones, and this week's reviews. Plus we answer your questions, as always.
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(Credit: LG Electronics)Getting an early start on the competition, LG Electronics announced Sunday that its new Arena KM900 smartphone will debut at the upcoming Mobile World Congress.
LG is touting the touch screen's user interface as featuring a 3D cube-based layout with four customizable screens for accessing the phone's features.
"The direct, intuitive, and dynamic S-Class UI will be unlike anything that has appeared on a mobile phone before," Skott Ahn, president of LG Mobile, said in a statement.
The Arena features a 3-inch WVGA touch screen with 800×400 resolution and a 5-megapixel camera that promises "DVD quality video recording." The phone will also include support for HSDPA 7.2 networks, Wi-Fi, and A-GPS.
LG plans to announce more details at the Mobile World Congress, which runs February 16 to 19 in Barcelona.
Microsoft appears poised to officially unveil a Web-based service that will let users store, share, and back up data from their mobile phones.
Provided, that is, that the phones run Microsoft's Windows Mobile 6 phone operating system. And the service will be available as only a limited beta to start with.
Details of Microsoft's impending My Phone service slipped out inadvertently when the Web site went live ahead of its scheduled debut. The site appears to have been spotted first by Engadget Mobile, which also referred to the service as SkyBox.
Microsoft's My Phone service is intended to provide backup and other services for Windows Mobile 6 users.
According to the Microsoft My Phone site, the service will let users back up and restore the phone's data, access contact and scheduling information, and share photos. Users will get 200MB of free storage, but beware--a synchronization attempt that exceeds the limit will cut off any files beyond the 200MB mark.
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The biggest cell phone show of the year is a week away, but we're already seeing loads of brand new phones finding their way to the Web before they're officially announced.
While it's guaranteed we'll see some more interesting stuff at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, which of the phones that have already been leaked are you most excited about?
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Less than a year after buying up smartphone maker E-Ten, Acer will debut its first handheld, a company representative confirmed Wednesday.
The Taiwanese PC maker has just begun distributing invitations to a press event that will be held next month during the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Spain. Both President and CEO Gianfranco Lanci and Aymar de Lencquesaing, the head of the Smart Handheld business unit, will be on hand for the event. The invitation specifically says "smartphones" launch, so it doesn't sound like it's going to be an event focused on a single model or device like, say, Apple's past iPhone events, or the Palm Pre launch.
If Acer's found a way to enter the smartphone market in less than a year, it begs the question: where is Dell? The Texas PC maker has had almost a complete makeover of its consumer business in the last two years, but it's been focused on its laptop lineup mostly.
During that time, Dell hired Ron Garriques, a former executive in Motorola's cell phone division--and still nothing. It's coming up on two years since the company pulled out of the handheld market and all we've heard so far is an offhand comment from CEO Michael Dell last July that his company is "kind of working on" making another smartphone. To be fair, Dell did say during the summer not to expect it soon. But still...where is it?
If you think the biggest problem with a camera phone is the poor quality of the photos, a member of Congress might make you think again. Earlier this month, Rep. Pete King (R-N.Y.) introduced a bill in the House of Representatives that would ban camera phones from having a silent mode when taking a picture.
The Camera Phone Predator Alert Act (H.R. 414) would "require any mobile phone containing a digital camera to sound a tone whenever a photograph is taken." What's more, the bill would prohibit such handsets from being equipped with a means of disabling or silencing the tone. Enforcement would be through the Consumer Product Safety Commission.
The text of the bill is short, and King's office has not released any public statements. Yet, the reasoning behind the legislation is clear. The text states that "Congress finds that children and adolescents have been exploited by photographs taken in dressing rooms and public places with the use of a camera phone."
At the time of this writing the bill has been referred to the House Energy and Commerce. The Camera Phone Predator Alert Act has no co-sponsors.
A bipartisan bill introduced Tuesday in the House of Representatives would ban new state or local takes on mobile phone services for a period of five years. Sponsored by Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-Calif.) and five co-sponsors, the bill is known as the Cell Tax Fairness Act (HR 5793 ).
In a statement, Lofgren said that between January 2003 and July 2007, the taxation rate on wireless services increased four times faster than the rate for other taxable goods and services. As a result, consumers pay 15.19 percent in federal, state, and local taxes on their cell phone bill, compared with 7.07 percent in taxes for most other goods and services.
"The Cell Tax Fairness Act will help ensure that consumers make choices about communications technology based on the merits of that technology, rather than on the rate of taxation," Lofgren said. The legislation "does not take away any existing revenue for state or local governments."
The bill, which is similar to Senate legislation introduced last year, would not affect current taxes, nor does it call for a ban on any new federal taxes. Furthermore, the ban would not apply to fees meant to subsidize emergency 911 services nor the universal service charge, which funds telecommunications infrastructure for low-income and rural residents. The federal excise tax on phone services, which was originally created to support the Spanish-American War, was dropped by the Internal Revenue Service and the Department of the Treasury in August 2006.
The wireless industry's lobbying arm, the Cellular Telecommunications Industry Association (CTIA), is supporting the bill, calling it "a step in the right direction." In its own statement, the association joined Lofgren in saying that a ban on new taxes would help encourage new innovation in the wireless sector. "We should do everything in our power to remove the roadblocks--such as excessive, discriminatory wireless taxes--that stand in the way of progress," said CTIA President and CEO Steve Largent.
Cell phones taxes and fees have been the target of a few bills in Congress since the Democrats regained control of the House, but lawmakers and the CTIA haven't always seen eye to eye. Separate bills in both the Senate and the House propose eliminating early termination fees and handset locking. The latter issue has become particularly controversial following AT&T's well-publicized lock on the iPhone, even though handset locking has been standard practice in the industry for years. Though the Senate bill won support from Senators in a hearing held in October, Largent and the CTIA have declined to support it, calling it "unnecessary."
The thought of cell phone chatter on cramped commercial airplanes is so unappetizing to some politicians that they're pushing for a more lasting ban.
At the moment, of course, federal rules prohibit in-flight use of cell phones for safety reasons, and federal regulators have appeared loathe to reconsider that stance, at least in recent months.
The chief sponsors of the new Halting Airplane Noise to Give Us Peace--or Hang Up--Act, say their measure is necessary to keep things that way, particularly with the European Union's recent move to allow cell phone use on planes and more U.S. airlines experimenting with on-board Internet access.
"The public doesn't want to be subjected to people talking on their cell phones on an already overpacked airplane," said Rep. Peter DeFazio (D-Ore.), one of the bill's chief sponsors. "However, with Internet access just around the corner on U.S. flights, it won't be long before the ban on voice communications on in-flight planes is lifted."
The bill, which is also backed by Reps. Jerry Costello (D-Ill.), John Duncan (R-Tenn.), and Thomas Petri (R-Wisc.), would limit its ban to "voice communications using a mobile-communications device," according to a copy seen by CNET News.com.
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That means that as surfing the Internet, e-mailing, and text-messaging capabilities become available on planes, they'll be permitted. (JetBlue, for one, has been testing in-flight e-mail and IM, while American Airlines and Virgin America are among the companies planning on-board broadband for a fee.) Talking on a "phone installed on an aircraft" would also be allowed.
Costello, who serves as chairman of a House aviation subcommittee, plans to hold hearings on the bill as soon as possible, according to a Contra Costa Times report.
To back up their position, the bill's sponsors cited a recent survey by the Association of Flight Attendants and the National Consumers League that found 63 percent of respondents opposed in-flight cell phone use.
The airline industry, for its part, would prefer not to keep its options open. The Air Transport Association, which represents all the major airlines, said in a statement quoted by the Contra Costa Times that decisions about in-flight communications "should be made by the individual airlines, based on passenger needs and preferences."
