If you haven't studied the complexity of federal telecommunications regulation, you might find this bizarre:
What has AT&T been doing? Well, it's been issuing calling cards to American troops -- 325,000 of them worth $6 million in calls to those in Iraq and 25,000 to injured service members at hospitals stateside. The donated cards are the same as those sold at stores, so they contain ads from Wal-Mart and SAM'S CLUB. That, though, isn't the exploitation that McCormick is concerned with. The USTA's objection is AT&T's assertion that the inclusion of the ads makes the cards an "information service" rather than a strict telecommunications service.This let's them avoid a lot in taxes... and a broken regulatory scheme...
Posted by Kevin on December, 30 2004 at 12:19 PM
