Astound → [Phone] taxes on RCN landline?

I'm looking to get a landline because I use a fax machine for my home office. How much taxes can one expect on a single line in NYC? tia

Wouldn't an RCN landline still be an INTERNET (voip) landline and therefore still flakey for fax purposes? Or, does RCN sell POTS (copper PSTN lines) in NY?

I have never had a problem using a FAX on the RCN VOIP telephone connection.

@brg, cable company VoIP/digital voice never hits the public internet. Yes it's IP but doesn't use public internet like Vonage or magicjack.

@wbertram and @Mikehall, thanks. Wasn't aware of the capability of RCN VoIP fax, and didn't know that "cable company VoIP/digital voice never hits the public internet."

But I can't picture the topography supporting the later statement and am dubious.

RCN is a regional IP. If one places a call using RCN IP telephony from, for example, New York, to a PSTN phone in San Francisco (old Pac Bell), or Washington State, RCN most definitely does not have private digital trunks to those terminating locations. So, the RCN traffic is handed off to some other major underlying IP carrier (Level 3, for example), where it is aggregated with and rides with all the other "public internet" packet data traffic.

I may be uninformed, but that looks just like what happens when I place a call using my VoIP carrier via my ISP to a PSTN number on the other side of the county. And it creates the same problems that plague faxing using analog fax technology over packetized IP lines: jitter and un-synched packet arrival.

I, too, have faxed sucessfully over VoIP. But never as reliably as with my old ATT POTS line. But, cool that it works well with RCN...

I believe the calls, using IP, are carried over the RCN cable network from your home to a local RCN office. They are then transferred to the PSTN, the same as if the call had reached the local RCN office using traditional copper or digital telephone technology. Likewise, a call you are receiving is carried over the PSTN to the local RCN office, and from there to your home over the RCN cable network using IP.

Thanks. I'd assumed the interconnect was at the far end, for termination (like all other non ISP VoIP traffic), rather than the local originating end. My background is Telco, and you are suggesting that RCN is connecting as a local originating switch to what, back in the day, would have been called a Class 5 Switch (old AT&T Longlines equivalent; an InterLATA switch). Never heard of this and I'm surprised.

I would like to know the answer to the original question. What are the New York taxes on a landline? I know here in Maryland, between the Feds, State and County, the taxes exceed the cost of the line. I suspect New York, stuck leaning the same direction as Maryland, is equally punishing with taxes for land lines (as well as cell, cable, or for that matter, anything that moves or has a wallet).

We have a RCN VOIP land line that works fine with fax and security system as well, although the alarm company has been after us to switch to cell so the outside wires can't be compromised.

Here are the taxes in LV (if that hels
Federal Subscriber Line Charge ..............................$8.50
Federal Excise Tax .......................................................$0.26
Federal Universal Service Fund ................................$1.32
State Sales Tax .............................................................$0.30
State Gross Receipts Tax ............................................$1.97
State Telecom Relay Surcharge ...............................$0.08
City 911 Fee ................................................................$1.25

Anything that doesn't say tax is part of the general cost of doing business, they just have permission to line item it from the Fcc. What is particularly annoying is FSLC. The normal land lines are limited to $6.50 . The whole charge is a holdover from 30 years ago when they broke up Bell Telephone, and now it's just a way to advertise a lower rate than is actually charged.

I thought by now most people scanned documents and sent them to Fax machines via internet rather than assume the cost of a dedicated line. Unless you are faxing all day, it seems a waste.

But the few times I've done it, the RCN line works fine.

Telephone Taxes in the Banana Republic of Montgomery County MD

Federal Subscriber Line Charge ..............................$7.99
Federal Excise Tax ................................................$0.24
Federal Universal Service Fund ...............................$1.33
Gross Receipts Tax ................................................$0.51
State E911 Surcharge ...........................................$0.25
Telecommunications Access Fee...............................$0.20
County E-911 Surcharge.........................................$1.25
County Telephone Surcharge...................................$2.00

Total equals $13.77; the County and State euchre a total of $34.08 including the TV and Internet, or just about 18% of our total bill.

Taxes, Government Surcharges and fees

Federal Excise Tax 0.56
NY State and Local Sales Tax 1.64
911 Surcharge 1.00

Other Charges

Federal Universal Service Fee 1.05
Federal Subscriber Line Charge 6.40
NY State and Local Surcharges 1.02
NY Universal Service Fund 0.05